


freedom

by Annevar44



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Loyalty, PTSD, Political Intrigue, Terrorism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:28:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 65,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2764799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annevar44/pseuds/Annevar44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>well there's this story called Loyalties. i'm just dumping the extra pieces here so i know where to find them without getting confused.  whatever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. carana and angel.  mirtallev. angel.father

......................... 

It's been six years since Angel Moro left Prague with her best friend, taking the night train east across the border into Arbeztan on the eve of its civil war. It's been four years since Jamie Callahan found her - the starving, shivering remains of her - at the Marchev internment camp. Neither of them can forget, and neither of them can go back. But tonight the past is coming for them both. 

...................................................................................... 

She had been lying awake for some time while Carana snored softly. At first she had been too angry to sleep. The evening had gone wrong early, when Jiri turned up at the bar where they were having drinks and spirited Carana off unexpectedly (wife gone out of town, probably) - and Angel couldn't help noticing that Carana didn't seem surprised to see him. And that she became all giddy and flirty, a whole different person, as soon as he showed up. Angel had told herself it was fine and there was nothing rude about Carana running off like that, even though they had just been talking about going over the bridge to see the castle at night. She had swung along home on her own, not too bothered by Carana's desertion. The spring air was scented with candles and the dark waters of the Vltava. At home she'd hung up some clothes that were lumped on the floor, and ate crackers and had another drink from the wine bottle by the sink. Only when the clock unwound past midnight did she start to worry. Carana wouldn't stay out this late without calling. 

Or would she? Was this the new Carana - so busy falling in love with a rich asshole, that she'd forget to pick up the damn phone? The minutes passed and Angel had become torn between two opposing ideas: first, that Jiri was no damn good and had taken Carana away somewhere against her will and was treating her terribly (at least she'd come home hating him, which would be a sweet turn of events) or that Carana had tumbled into a large, silk-sheeted bed somewhere with her important, married, off-limits boyfriend - and that poor devoted Angel was the last thing on her mind. 

Carana, of course, had come home safe and sound at two, wobbling a little, gushing about Jiri, and brushing off Angel's comments about phones and assholes and thoughtlessness. Angel swallowed her rage while Carana flopped onto her bed and sighed an exhausted, happy sigh. But then she got serious. Jiri had made a proposal to her - a crazy proposal, not something she would ever do. But if she didn't do it, did that mean she was a bad person? Angel had listened through her rage and thought, secretly, that the proposal was much more up her own alley than up Carana's. Idiot Jiri had picked the wrong roommate. She didn't say this out loud, though. Meanwhile, Carana stripped off her skirt and top and was asleep five minutes later. Leaving Angel to her thoughts. In the dark, Jiri's idea had slowly seized hold of her mind. Her fury abated as this new possibility began to burn in her. A Joan of Arc feeling came over her, all purpose and righteousness. And when she crept over to Carana, heart pounding, and Carana sat up slowly with the mattress rustling under her, she already knew she could make Carana bend. A hot strength was in her, enough to blast down mountains. And Carana had no strength to oppose her at this moment: half-drunk, three-quarters asleep, and out past two dancing and stumbling into love with a cretin. 

There had been other balance points too - moments when the thing could have tipped either way. Because through all the preparations - and there weren't many; just toiletries gathered and a change of clothes tossed into her backpack, and a last look around the apartment, and Carana going out to meet Jiri and returning with a slim packet of papers and a stack of American currency (better than Czech once they'd cross the border) - Angel had still nursed in a secret corner of her mind the knowledge that she could call the deal off. Knowing that, she had a sense of security. As she laid her t-shirt into her pack, and threw in her rugged shoes - because sandals were nice but a girl had to be prepared for anything - she calmed her creeping nervousness by remembering that it wasn't serious yet; they weren't committed to anything; they were only going through the motions. So that, if they decided to go ahead with it, they would have everything ready. And if they backed away, no harm done. 

In that way, stepwise, she had inched closer to the moment of departure without ever looking it full in the face. And Carana? If Carana had doubts, she kept them to herself as well. She had thrown a certain look toward Angel once, that Friday evening when they were going through their drawers and the shared closet, choosing clothes with tense, efficient movements and none of the usual goofy hilarity that Angel loved. Carana had seemed about to say something doubtful or hesitant or balky. But Angel, seeing it coming, had spoken up quickly. "Jiri is never going to forget this. Imagine how happy he must be. Imagine what it will be like when we get back." And she had grinned and presented a smooth surface with no chinks that Carana could get a handhold on. And her friend had lost her balky look and nodded. 

The station was majestic. Angel loved train stations... great vaulted building, pushed through the crowds, bought their tickets, went to stand out on the platform. It was windy and Carana was wearing a sundress that tied behind her neck. It was supposed to be calf-length but the backpack had rucked up the cloth around her waist, and now the wind lifted it higher. Carana laughed and stuck out her hip. A couple of Turks were lolling nearby and one of them said something disgusting in either Czech or Turkish. Guys like that were everywhere in Prague; they made Angel feel dirty and sometimes helpless - like when in a crowd when someone grabbed her breasts and rushed past, then looked back smirking - but she tried to make a wall against them in her mind. 

They boarded the train. 

 

Her sneakers were in her pack. Actually, she had never been planning to wear sandals, but just before they left the apartment Carana had changed into elegant flats and a flippy skirt, so Angel had felt called upon to make an effort to match her. Carana was always elegance in motion. She was made of gold leaf and stardust and Angel loved that about her, but the contrast between them was a burden. Angel never completely forgot it. It dogged her in a deep low-down way she didn't like to think about directly. Having a best friend was the sweetest joy. That her best friend was beautiful was a nice extra. But it came with a downside too. It was maybe the only difference between them. 

Anyway, with the sandals off her heels barely bothered her. Outside the train, the platform stretched flat and gray. A strange breathlessness had come over her as she leaned back against the accordion door of their booth, with They were almost on their way. 

She was nervous, probably; that was all. Ordinarily Angel would have asked if everything was all right, but right now she she was too engaged with her own soaring reverie. Ordinarily she thought more of Carana than of herself, with the generosity of utter friendship. But right now, for these few minutes in the corridor, she was flying down her own path separate from Carana. They were two different people with thoughts they each kept to themselves. 

Later Angel would not forgive herself for this. In retrospect the silence seemed ominous. "Let's not do this;" that's what she'd probably been thinking. "For Christ's sake, let's go home before it's too late." 

"We should stake out our territory," she'd said. "We'll be sentries at the gate. No one can join us who doesn't know the password." She had laughed but Carana had just answered somberly, "All right." And then, "What's the password?"

"Chtvrti." That was her favorite word in Czech. She had taught it to Carana, who immediately adopted it as a curseword, spitting the consonants violently between her teeth anytime she stubbed a toe or was late for work or the shower water ran cold. Carana smiled - a nervous smile, but it was something. 

shone with a fierce spirit as she said it. She had a

The window was across the room and overlooked an alley behind Plavecka where a blind row of stone buildings stood; the window let in no appreciable light, so Angel could not see her friend's face. She saw adventure and glory though, as clearly as if they were written in the air. She saw citadels and banners flying, and Carana beside her as they rode forward into destiny. 

p>...............

It wasn't so far, this place she called her home now, from where she'd grown up - just six miles across town in a similar apartment made of cardboard and ceiling cracks. Back then she'd believed the world was big and she'd make a mark in it. Her father came home beaten from work, paint stains around his nails, his feet shuffling in a beeline for the worn sofa, the remote. It was just the two of them. He'd been large when she was small, but by the time she was twelve she'd felt her strength rising as his shrank. He was worn and she was invincible and it made him angry. 

"Where were you?" he roared when she came home late, the sun diving behind the apartments as hte streetlights winked on. 

Only the library. But she wouldn't tell him that; telling would be weakness; it would be surrender. She hardened herself and stared him down, concealing her banging heart. When he raised his hand, she ducked and ran to her room, slammed the door, and looked around for something hard and heavy she could use against him if he followed. Outside the door, though, she heard nothing. Then his heavy shuffle, and then the sofa springs settling beneath his bulk. She stayed frozen like that for a long time, amazed at her audacity. Amazed she'd won. 

After that she stayed out later and later. He looked at her with hate when she came home, if he was awake - but if she waited long enough he fell asleep next to a bottle of chianti, the TV on low. She'd walk by him softly, not looking, in case he was really awake and looking back. 

One day she came home on time. The thick envelope in her hand gave her courage. She had jeans on, a t-shirt, clothes he said were only worn by whores. "I'm going to college," she told him. He didn't answer. "The counselor at school. She helped me apply, months ago." She waited, but his impassive face showed nothing, and she couldn't stop herself from goading him, like poking a snake. "They invited me for an interview two months ago. I took the T. You never knew. I did it all, all by myself. They gave me a scholarship. I'm going to live in the dorms next year. I'm leaving." 

"All right," he answered. "Get out, then." And reached for another swig of wine. 

END CH ONE

At mid-morning, Azor Mirtallev glanced across the lobby of the Hotel Krindal and met the eyes of the one last man who would ever try to kill him. 

With just hours to the kickoff of the National Cup, Chambor Avenue's cobbles were already shimmering in the heat. Old men were gathering at their usual neighborhood bistros, jostling and gesticulating over the sidewalk tables as they argued about Lomaran's fitness and the oppostion's supposed weakness on the left side. Party girls who had careened home just before sunrise were now stumbling out of bed hours earlier than usual, shaking back their hair and throwing open their curtains. The occasion was celebrated as a holiday across all Beztan - "from shore to peaks" as the colloquial expression put it - but nowhere more this year than here in the capital, where the Sokhrina Lions had made the finals for the first time in eighteen years. Strangers in the street grinned spontaneously at each other. Actresses and dignitaries were pulling up in long black cars to shop the boutiques which, along with liquor stores, were among the few businesses keeping their doors open. Though the victory bottles had not yet been uncorked, everyone was certain that champagne would soon run in the streets.

Mirtallev was a native son of Sokhrina. He had grown up in the capital's hardscrabble back alleys; at twelve he was a distributor of black-market cigarettes, and at fifteen he flicked his wrist and watched a man's life pour out through the gash in his throat. By that time the iron grip of the old order was already faltering, and Sokhrina saw plenty of blood on the cobbles every morning as rising powers positioned themselves to be in the right place with it fell. He had been called Little Valeri then. No longer. N


	2. blood

At mid-morning in downtown Sokhrina, Azor Mirtallev glanced across the lobby of the Hotel Krindal and met the eyes of the man who had come to kill him. 

It was at long last the week of the National Cup. Mirtallev had booked the best suite in the whole damn place, with a sixth-floor balcony view that overlooked the seething city. In two days he would host a party for the Sokhrina Lions, to celebrate their impending victory. Actresses and politicians would lean their elbows on the railing, rings flashing, ice rattling in their glasses. Beautiful young women would drape themselves over stately divans. His wife, who had retired from acting when he married her but still looked almost as fresh as an ingenue, would enjoy the fuss and glitter even as she kept a jealous eye on him. None of his darker acquaintances would be present. He would meet them at other times throughout the week, in less public places.

As the porters had not yet arrived to carry his wife’s monogrammed suitcases upstairs, Mirtallev was leaning back against a column admiring the beauty that surrounded him. The tall arched windows took in the raw coastal sunlight, mellowing it through diamond panes so that the floor of blue tiles appeared luminous.

He loved the Hotel Krindal - loved its vaulted ceilings and the blue and gold tints of its embossed wallpaper, the woven tapestries of wolves and hunters that recalled Beztan's medieval days of glory. Here, he felt the rich mantle of destiny on his shoulders. Here he could view the long corridor of his nation's history, all leading straight to his feet. He had loved it as a boy, a ragged twelve-year old who didn't dare poke his nose past the big carved doors. He'd stayed where he belonged back then - running down Sohrina's alleys and along the riverdocks at night, delivering messages, selling black-market cigarettes, already figuring out how he could make a name for himself. He'd been called Little Azor then. No longer. Now he was the most powerful man in Parliament; everyone's smart bet for the next prime minister. The war had done that. He had risen, and he had plans to rise further, and he was going to take his beloved country to the heights with him. 

A pretty hotel girl passed close to him and, unable to help himself, he leaned to murmur a compliment in her ear. Because of this minute distraction, he failed to see his favorite bodyguard fumble a pair of sunglasses and drop them with uncharacteristic clumsiness to the polished floor. Only when the big man stooped to retrieve them did Mirtallev notice this disruption in protocol. When he saw Chogav crouching low and attending to the sunglasses - which must have broken, since they seemed to be giving him trouble - he frowned with displeasure and surprise.

At the same moment, half a world away, Mirtallev's old friend James Callahan lay in his own bedroom. His wife was beside him and he was smiling in his sleep. The curtains were drawn across the open window, stirring slightly in the sweet Virginia breeze; his eyes flickered beneath their lids. Untethered, his mind had taken flight to the Swiss Alps, where he and Theresa had once managed to meet up for three solid weeks - she was posted in the Ivory Coast in those days, and he in Geneva - during which they never once got out of bed. His solid earthbound body reached out instinctively for the warm curves of the body next to it. His arms found nothing, however - Theresa at that moment lay out of reach, on the far edge of their bed, in a tight coil with her face turned away. On Callahan's bedside table the alarm clock crept silently along. His phone lay beside it.

In another bed a thousand miles north - in one of Boston's last affordable zip codes - Angel Moro was lying resolutely awake. Above her head was a dark stain in the ceiling. It had grown larger during the four years she had occupied this studio, and lately a strip of ceiling skin had partly detached itself so that it dangled dangerously over her pillow. She had twisted her crooked hands into the blanket so her knuckles throbbed. She was staring up at the peel of ceiling and thinking about nothing but poor Damocles, and when she had retold his story to herself she moved on to the other men and women of legend who had helped her survive prison. Desperately she conjured one after another: Icarus, Thisbe, Heracles, Niobe, and Theseus the heartbreaker - young Theseus in his father's sandals, and older Theseus under black sails, a hero who came home a tragic idiot. She trembled and sweated and fixed her mind on every story she'd grown up on, as she clutched the blanket and hung on waiting for the dawn, and tried to keep her thoughts from dashing down all the narrow haunted tunnels of the past.

In the Krindal, Mirtallev frowned at Chogav. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something a young man in a too-cheap suit, advancing across the lobby with a fixed stare. It was his bold approach that had caught Mirtallev's notice; he was covering ground with the direct stride of an animal made fearless by distemper. As he came closer, Mirtallev noticed something else about him: he had the high cheekbones and arched nose common among the Karth - the mountain savages from Beztan's interior, who had risen up during the war and been beaten down like dogs.

Mirtallev drew back half a step and turned slightly sideways, looking meaningfully toward Chogav. Chogav was still down in a crouch. He, too, was looking at the onrushing man. Oddly he was not attempting to stand or draw his weapon. The man's jacket flapped open at the waist and he moved his right arm in a peculiar motion, which Mirtallev understood. 

He saw the man's arm jackknife open, a glint of metal in the fist.

He opened his mouth to shout.

A hot bolt burst in his throat. He clapped his hand to it, and wetness welled between his fingers.

In Virginia, Callahan sighed happily. He was still dreaming, and behind his closed eyes he saw Theresa turn to him with her old smile, so radiant it made his stomach drop. "It's over," she whispered - and because this was a dream he understood her meaning: _It's over. I forgive you._ Overcome, he wrapped her in his arms.

In Boston, Angel Moro closed her eyes and wound her damaged hands further into the blanket and repeated those same words fervently to herself: _It's over. Remember that it's over._

In downtown Sokhrina, Mirtallev gave a wheezing gasp and suffered a final convulsion on the lobby floor, a sheen of red moving outward between the blue tiles beneath him so it spread behind his shoulders like wings. 

It was less than an hour later that the phone by Callahan's bed began to ring.


	3. theresa

"Mirtallev," Theresa said.

The table was slippery under Callahan's palms. The night lay against the windows, encroaching on the bright cube of their kitchen. Night in the north Virginia suburbs was thicker and quieter than anyplace else on earth - and Callahan knew this for a fact because at this point, twenty-one years into a career with the Foreign Service, there was no place on earth he hadn't been. Now he sat in his own home, facing his own wife across a kitchen table and planning his negotiation strategy. It should not have been a hard assignment.

She held her head tilted slightly away, so he was able to see her left temple - and while no actual throbbing pulse was present there, one should have been; it would have matched the expression on her face. He had known she would look like this. Even before the phone call was over - Quentin practically shouting the news, him stunned and still shaking the sleep from his head and trying to grasp the meaning of the words _Mirtallev_ and _assassination_ slammed up against each other - all through that, he'd heard the quiet voice of doom in his mind. _Theresa. Theresa's going to hate this._

For a good ten minutes after the phone call, he watched his wife sleep, sitting on the edge of the bed and blowing across the rim of his coffee. Her black hair had fallen over her face, making him want to push it back for her. It occurred to him that he didn't have to wake her; he had options - that a different man would put a note on the table and slip out in the dark. _Work called. Sorry, honey. Emergency meeting in Washington; don't know how long I'll have to stay away. Will call soon. Love._ He'd like to be that man. But it wasn't his style - in spite of (or maybe because of) having been recruited into clandestine work seventeen years ago, he hated sneaking around any more than was strictly necessary.

It would have been no good, anyway. Theresa was no idiot, and she knew the company as well as he did - thirteen years against his seventeen. She'd turn on the news; they'd be talking about Azor, and she'd know. 

"Mirtallev's dead," she repeated now, lifting her eyebrows. "So. Karma comes through at last." 

She had come wide awake as soon as he had touched her, springing up from bed as if instantly expecting bad news. He had made her some tea - a half-assed apology, but the best he could come up with - and sat down with her in the kitchen to let her unload both barrels on him.

The hell of it was, he knew what she really wanted: to come around the table and put a hand on his shoulder, maybe put her arms around him, and say she was sorry he'd lost a friend. Under normal circumstances, she was the kindest person he knew - whenever word of a death came through, she was the one he wanted to run to. But this time it was Azor, and she had her principles. She'd thrown away her career, and ruined his, because of those principles. When it came to Azor she wouldn't soften, even though she longed to.

In spite of how fucked up everything had gotten between them, It made him strangely happy to sit quietly across the table and understand all this about her - to know her through and through just like she knew him, in a way no one else ever could. That's what a lifetime with one woman did to you. They had met as Foreign Service orientees, dating within two weeks and married before their first overseas assignments. They'd both been brilliant at their work, and their love had only grown stronger through long stretches of forced separation. Then they'd been recruited into the company together five years later, and even though he'd never (well, rarely) broken the rules and spilled secrets, her being in the same business meant she understood some of the worst and hardest things about his job - the ones that couldn't be said aloud.

That's why leaving her would feel like letting his organs slide out of his body and walking away hollow. Not that he didn't think about.

"It's not even five," he told her. "You should go back to bed. I'll call a cab to take me to the station."

"Jamie. Why are they calling you?" There was a fierceness to the words. It was, of course, the obvious question. "Why you after four years? You and not Taylor?"

"I'm sure they've been talking to her too. It's probably nothing. Maybe Quentin just wants to tell me I'm requested at the state funeral." He shrugged. He considered yawning, but didn't want to oversell his position. The truth was, Quentin's voice coming over the line had vaulted him up on a cross-current of wild elation, despite the shocking news. Four years since they'd tossed him out, but still, in the middle of the night, in the moment of crisis, it was him they thought of. 

"That's bullshit." She wasn't looking at him anymore, only through him, while her intellect whirred on shiny wheels. "Mirtallev was America's strongest ally in Sokhrina. Now the trade negotiations are jeopardized. And Quentin needs you to patch up the hole." She stared at him. "They're calling you back in."

 _Calling him back in._ She spoke of the company as if it were the Mafia, which wasn't completely fair. But hearing her say those words like that, out loud, made his hopes shoot upward behind the practiced calm of his face. If they took him back he'd go without hesitation, and Theresa's displeasure wouldn't stop him. He'd been chained up in the doghouse long enough. 

His mind flicked back to Azor. Shot dead.

He didn't quite believe that it was true.

He could picture his old comrade in the Krindal's lobby, looking the way he must have looked just before it happened - his laughter ringing out, everyone leaning toward him. Shot in the throat, Quentin had said; over in an instant. It was hard to imagine Azor could be killed, much less that it would happen so far away and that he would sleep through it, and the world would keep turning as if it didn't notice. 

She was still watching him. "Why you?" she said again.

The last time he'd seen Azor, they'd shaken hands on the flagstone patio of Azor's summer house by Qardi Lake while the little ones shrieked and splashed along the shore. The war seemed far away and easy to ignore, and they had promised to see each other soon. Azor might even have believed that promise. Callahan, with his new orders from the US State Department burning in his pocket, knew it wasn't likely.

He faced Theresa squarely. "I knew him best," he said. "We were friends." It was the truth. Theresa didn't want to be reminded of it, but Azor was dead and Callahan wasn't going to lie; not tonight with the body still warm. He already knew how she would respond: by drawing herself up into a tall column of chilled rock and iron morality. Their old arguments were about to be reignited, and he would leave for DC with her parting shots ringing in his ears.

But she surprised him. She dropped her head and turned away. Something fragile showed in the curve of her mouth, just before her dark hair came down like a falling curtain.

"Don't I know it," she said softly.


	4. angel

Angel Moro roved through time, forward and back. Her mind leaped across continents. She had poor focus. Her mind dashed around wildly in the night when she couldn't sleep, and in the day when she was supposed to be working. It had been that way ever since she'd come back from Beztan; there was nothing she could do about it. Right now she was stepping off the T into the street, almost home, but her mind leapt back and eastward - six years, four thousand miles - and Boston melted and Prague played in her head. 

,

"Angel, you're coming to the WorldTeach party? Brian will be there."

Angel, lying stomach-down with a book propped up on her pillow, didn't look up. The smell of nail polish pervaded the room and made her smile. "Good reason to stay away," she said.

"Tough luck, chickie. I'm not giving you a choice."

Angel ignored that. She had already decided not to go tonight. She was shy at get-togethers until she drank too much, and then half the time she woke up in someone's bed by accident. She was an introvert who harbored a caged wild streak that could be set free with a couple of jello shots - after which she became daring and sharp, a girl on a fast ride with a horde of boys leaning close. That ride always ended brutally in a low crash the morning after. In college, where she'd been lonely, she had partied hard every weekend. She didn't have any knack for making friends, so she settled for getting boys to pay attention. Somehow, though, that had only made things worse. Girls hated her for kissing their boyfriends. At the peak of every Friday night she was on top of the world, but come the light of day she had no one to eat breakfast with. 

She'd slammed the book on those days. Prague was different. Here, she had met Carana, and that had changed everything. Now Angel didn't need attention; she was perfectly happy to stay home in their little apartment reading a book while Carana went out and sparkled and twirled, then came home and told her all the gossip.

Carana, however, grabbed hold of her ankle and started shoving shoes onto her feet.

"Stop it; you're crushing down the backs!" She had only the one pair of black pumps that she wore everywhere she couldn't wear sneakers - unlike flawless Carana who had a row of heels, boots, and sandals lined up in the closet. She kicked, sending the shoes flying with a thud and a crash. Then Carana put one of her long denim-clad legs against the wall and seized her arm and began prying on it.

Her book slipped to the floor and she squealed in protest. But she was laughing as she slid sideways, the blankets rucking under her. Carana lost her grip, lost her balance and fell on her butt with a shout of pain, and then they were both laughing helplessly, and Angel knew she had never been this happy in her life and that it would never end. She had swallowed the sun and it was shining out of her chest.

How had she gotten this lucky? Carana had blazed into her life like a meteorite on the first day of WorldTeach orientation. They were instant best friends. Now, late into the night they talked like kids at a slumber party - like at all those slumber parties Angel had never been invited to - telling stories about places they'd been and trouble they'd been in, about their parents, about things Angel had never told anyone else. 

"Come out!" Carana yelled. "Socialize, for once in your sorry life! I need you!"

"Do you?" That hadn't occurred to her.

"Yes, you idiot. I invited that new client of mine - Mr. Under-minster of Finance, the one with the twin boys I'm tutoring. The one I'm crazy about. I need you to rescue me if I start making a fool of myself."

"All right," she said instantly. Because if Carana needed her, that was different. That was the central law of friendship, one she'd learned from the stories she'd loved as a kid. Friends stood by each other through everything. 

"Thank you, I love you, you're amazing," Carana said. "I'll never forget this."

.

Angel trudged home from the T stop. The sidewalk ran alongside the torn-up field where the Brazilians did battle each evening - shirts against skins, dripping with sweat and glory as the ball moved magnetically under their feet. She tore her mind away from Prague for a moment, and turned to watch them. The boys crashed against each other fearlessly; when they hit the turf they leaped up cursing in their language. The one-armed boy she loved was a skin tonght, his chest gleaming and his stump pistonning as he ran. He was disfigured, but unlike her he didn't go through life hiding it. 

Two girls had set out that night for the WorldTeach party off Narodni Ave. Now both were gone forever. They had lived only a few months, in that other country, in an old city full of spires and cafes where every evening a crowd gathered in the Old Town Square. People cheered as the famous clock struck the hour and the figure of Death emerged and marched across it. Maybe that had been a warning.

Hearing a sound behind her, Angel glanced back nervously. There was nothing there. She had a habit of falling so deeply into memories that she forgot to watch for danger. It was, she knew, because she was so alone - she felt like someone trapped on a desert island, staring from the shore while ships sailed by and no one visited. Her mind scrabbled at the emptiness. It grabbed at her ghosts and resurrected them to keep her company. In the dead of night, when she couldn't sleep, it dragged out the ghosts of Marchev. In daylight it brought Carana.

That was the paradox. You bury your bodies and you run. But you can't stop going back to the scene, pushing off the thin cover of soil and leaves to look at what you've lost.

A chorus of shouts rose suddenly from the field, and she turned. The one-armed boy had shot a beautiful arc toward the goal, and the keeper leaped, and when he came down he was grinning, the prize held high above his head. He yelled something that must have Portuguese for "Kiss my ass!"

She was always trying to make sense of what had happened. Wars start; she told herself; things change. People live and die, and nothing lasts forever. She - who had once been Carana Silvestri's best friend - had aged quickly into a frumpy, disfigured woman, wearing clothes bought from the thrift shop on North Beacon that stayed open late and was nearly empty when she prowled it after dark. She chose outfits that hung off her. She was a modestly overweight church secretary, the kind who never called in sick because she shrank from the thought of explaining her absence. She gave the impression of being reliable, though actually her job bored her to tears and she worked as slowly as possible. The minister would never fire her, because he thought of her as one of the needy - he had kept her on for almost four years and unless she someday pulled a knife from her skirt and ran around screaming, he would keep her on forever. She would grow old at her job, in her apartment, walking these nine blocks to and from the T, and nothing would ever change. Well, it was all right. A lot of people had a life like that. She tried to be philosophical.

But really, was she the same Angel she'd been in Prague a million years ago? Or was she only what she was, with the way back severed and drenched in blood?

She veered away from the Brazilians, crossing the street to face the gauntlet of college kids that lay between her and home. She passed the Corner Café and then the poster shop. She could see the edge of her building and a panicky anticipation rose in her. All day was a slow unhappy prelude to the great moment of homecoming. Through the T ride home she became increasingly edgy, and the closer she got to her goal the more she felt a desperate desire to be inside and nowhere else. On the walk home, she ticked off each block as she put it behind her. Soon she'd be over the threshold with her apartment door clicking shut. And then. Then she would exhale, and something stiff and heavy would fall from her - the false front, like a sandwich board, that she hoisted in the morning and carried around all day where people could see.

That was the high point. The terrible truth was that relief only lasted a moment. An unnamed fear set in then, and in a breathless rush she would seize the remote, throw Ramen into the pot, microwave a coffee, cram a doughnut into her mouth, grab a book, open a creamer and a sweetener, log onto the computer, change channels, read celeb gossip on the internet and kill time desperately until her eyes burned and she could fall into bed exhausted. Within her walled world she was safe from outside threats but faced danger from a different enemy, a subtler one that did not stop at a locked door.

"Carana," she muttered. "Sveti, Anton, Igor." She was a block from home now; almost there. Then a chill touched her, a fork drawing up her back. She could feel eyes on her. Someone was watching.

She took a quick survey in all four directions, artfully casual and not at all resembling - she hoped - the twitchy vigilance of a paranoiac. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. A knot of college kids slouched at the entrance to the skate shop. An Asian couple was hesitating outside the Vietnamese restaurant. People in their usual variety of colors and languages were strolling or striding or looking in shop windows.

She punched in the entry code. Her building had a false front just as she did - it looked handsome enough from the outside, but once past the solid front door, the illusion collapsed. The entry lobby had a hard yellowish floor laid out in squares that were chipped at the corners, and the fluorescent lights made everything jaundiced. She checked her mailbox, heart stopped at the moment the lid popped open, but only a circular was coiled inside. She hadn't expected anything better. July, the magic month, was still three weeks away. But hope was a needle under her skin three-sixty-five a year.

In the piss-smelling elevator, she hit her button and held her breath as she started counting. Fate smiled today: the elevator went straight to the fifth floor with no one boarding, and despite the sluggish sliding doors and the ancient creak of the hidden pulleys above her, she had counted only to eighteen when she stepped out onto her floor. Her lungs generally held out until twenty-six. Today she would make it. In fact she had the key in the lock by twenty-one, and by twenty-three, her lungs barely beginning to burn, she had thrown the door shut and sealed herself within.


	5. washington

Washington, now as familiar as his own kitchen, still held over Callahan the enchanting power of a first love. At twenty-three, an orientee off the bus from West Virginia, he'd walked the streets for hours with his acceptance letter folded carefully in his pocket. He'd nursed his secret specialness, surveying his new kingdom with the swollen pride of a child emperor. A stupid kid is what he'd been - but even now, even in M.A. at the bottom of the food chain, it still did things to him: the white monuments, the schoolkids by the busload crawling over everything, the summer glare and the smell of pretzels; all of it. 

The lobby of the C43 building had changed in the years since he'd last had reason to enter it. The lobby furniture was now bright and boxy and the walls were the wrong color. The guards at the front desk didn't know who he was; they went over his ID line by line, then called upstairs to confirm his appointment. But the elevator was the same, the button timeworn and familiar under his thumb, and he couldn't help smiling as he stepped out onto the fifth floor and saw Corinne at the reception window.

"You," she said.

"Damn straight. Miss me like crazy?"

She snorted at that, and he leaned against her desk while they caught up for a while. Her past four years had been better than his - her son, who had been facing a jail term for possession the last Callahan had heard, now had a job, a kid, a steady life. She asked about his wife and he braced himself. "She works for Vision International," he said. "It's a medical nonprofit." But she just smiled and said, "Good for her." Which was pretty much the best response he'd ever heard on that particular subject.

Her phone rang. "Yes, sir, he is." She gave him a hug before he went in.

Quentin was seated at the conference table with papers in front of him. He didn't rise, but his face lit up and he motioned to the chair across from him. "Short notice," he said. "Thanks for coming in. Good to see you again."

"You too." Quentin was the same; blunt and stocky and straight to the point. He wasted no more than a minute on pleasantries. "So he's dead; it's confirmed. Karel Simontov is already stepping into Mirtallev's shoes, to no one's surprise. He called Erika Taylor three hours ago with an interesting proposal. I want your insight into it."

"What's the proposal?"

"Quid pro quo. The assassin was a Karth terrorist, one of the separatists from the Kar-Paval mountains, as you might have guessed. Simontov wants our help eliminating them. If we can clear the terrorists out of the Kar-Paval range once and for all, he promises us everything we want."

"You mean, exclusive mining rights up in the mountains." He didn't get invited to policy meetings, but the regional briefs were delivered to his office.

"That, and a military base in the eastern plains. But Simontov's an unknown to us. What can we expect from him? Is he also going to Russia behind our back? Will he command the same clout as Mirtallev to squash dissent in parliament? You had a personal connection to him once. I'd like to hear your opinion."

"Well, I'll tell you everything I know," Callahan said. He took a breath and assumed his poker face. "Simontov puts forward a public image of staunch nationalism and is seen as a less flashy version of his mentor. In the centrist Sokhrina Courier, which has government backing, he's always been portrayed as a loyal protégé. No disagreements between him and Mirtallev were ever publicized there, and photos often showed them together at social occasions like the _gazhents_ \- traditional Beztani boxing - and the Sokhrina Opera. Now, the Globe, which runs more leftist and is considered an adversarial paper by the prime minister, has always viewed Mirtallev a bit skeptically but has had little to say about Simontov. Among the lesser papers, only the Post, an old-guard Communist daily based in Beztan's second city of Partiyev, takes a negative view of him. They had an equally bleak assessment of his mentor. However it should be added that the Post's circulation has dropped off steadily every year since the end of the war, and has little influence on mainstream opinion."

Quentin was staring. Callahan looked back innocently.

"Excellent," snapped Quentin. "Did you practice that speech the whole way up on the Metro?"

"Longer than that. Sir."

"Bitterness looks bad on you. I didn't ask you here as a media analyst."

"Then I must be here as a disgraced former employee. Well, that's certainly much better."

Quentin smiled and pointedly ignored him. "You and Mirtallev and Simontov. You were the three musketeers, once. Is the man going to follow in his master's footsteps? A staunch US ally or a wild card?"

Callahan had known Quentin for fifteen years and on the strength of that, he'd been unable to resist taking the opening shot. However, he was also a diplomat, or used to be, and was smart enough to know when to play nice. "Simontov spend ten years as the loyal number-two. He'll have to carry on Mirtallev's plans for now, to keep his power base. But his biggest problem is going to be with the darker side of Sokhrina politics."

"You mean, the organized crime connection."

He nodded. "Because Mirtallev came up through the Rachatan crime family, he remained one of them even when he became respectable. Simontov's not a thug; he's a statesman. But he needs to inherit the Rachatan family's devotion or he won't keep Mirtallev's empire together. They'll expect him to avenge Azor's death by hitting the terrorists hard. Right now he'll give us anything if we help him."

It hurt to speak of Azor in this way: a body on the floor being stepped over. One night they had kept Nadia's open after hours - Simontov had been there too, probably, though he didn't remember - and close to sunrise Azor had climbed on a table and shouted, "To us; to Jamie and Azor, kings of Beztan!"

"So it's an opportunity."

"Yes. But a failed assault on the terrorist strongholds will just brand him inept. He has to win on the first try." 

"What about a diplomatic solution? Some autonomy for the Karth, or whatever it is they want, in exchange for an end to terrorism and non-interference in the mines. What would Simontov think?"

"He'd be afraid of looking weak if he talked peace with the guys who just murdered his benefactor. But if the Karth were willing to publicly lay down arms, or surrender the separatist leaders to stand trial - maybe Simontov could save face. I don't know. He's a realist, not an adventurer. It might appeal to him."

Quentin tugged on his lower lip. "And his opinion towards the US?"

"He's a man of principle. Azor was different: he liked the high life; he gravitated toward glitter. He loved being received in Washington, which had greater cache than being received in Moscow. Simontov won't care about that. He wants two things: to secure his position with a show of strength, and to raise Beztan's position in the region. He's a patriot. He'll be an ally if we give him what he wants. If not, he'll go to Russia."

Quentin nodded. "Thank you for your assessment. You didn't keep in touch with them, did you? Simontov and Mirtallev?"

"No."

He should have, though. Now it was too late. Things had ended badly in the last days of the war, when the nonstop party crashed to a halt and he found himself staring at pits of rotting corpses. It was only months later that he started missing Azor - and by then he had been stripped of his clearance and everything had changed.

"You know," Quentin said, "I've been checking into your reviews. You do good work in Media."

"Oh. Kind of you. Yes, my reports are punctual. My fluency rating is top-level and the prep class I teach at Theta base is considered thorough and informative. Thank you, sir."

"I wasn't being condescending. But I take it you'd like to get out."

That wasn't even worth responding to, so he just waited. Finally Quentin shook his head. "You still blame me, and not the choices you made? That's a worry."

"Old history. Maybe we shouldn't talk about it."

"Well the thing is, I'm having ideas. You and Mirtallev were once joined at the hip. You must have known quite a bit about his security arrangements. Which brings me to a matter that's being hushed up: the assassin was taken alive. Shot in the abdomen by Mirtallev's bodyguard and already out of surgery. If we're going to consider an operation in the mountains, we need to tap him for everything he knows. We're bringing him here to the Block for questioning."

"Who was the bodyguard?" Callahan's interest was piqued. "Chogav?"

"I don't know details. There's security-cam footage of the shooting itself that raises the question of an inside job. I'd like you to review the film, see what you think, and then talk it over with the interrogator who's going to be lead on the case. Paul Cabrese. He's based at Theta, so it will be convenient for you both."

Callahan had met Cabrese only once. He didn't flinch when the name was mentioned, but that was only because he was a trained professional.

"Our trouble is that Sokhrina is happy to tell us lies. Simontov pretended that clearing out the separatists will be an easy job, but if that's true, then obviously the Beztan military would have done it themselves. The terrain is challenging. We don't know anything about them: weapons, numbers, who backs them, what their leader is like - Jaro Kozlan."

"Actually," Callahan said mildly, "I've met him."

He had been waiting for the right moment to mention this. Quentin's expression was worth the wait.

"You've met him? You?"

"Yes."

"The wolf of the mountains. The man himself?"

"It was at the end of the war, when I was with the UN peacekeeping detachment."

Quentin laughed. "James Callahan knows Jaro Kozlan." He shook his head. "All right. Hit me with it. I'm all ears."

"You might not remember, but I was posted away from Sokhrina that April. The war was winding down. Mirtallev and I had had a very public friendship, and by then the rumors were spreading. Executions, mass rape, and so forth." He did not like to think of those days. "The UN unit I was assigned to was doing humanitarian relief. We entered the prison camp at Marchev in early June. Kozlan was one of the surviving prisoners. He stayed about four weeks in our infirmary. He spoke Beztani pretty well. We talked some. There were a handful of other Karth prisoners, and he was the one they looked up to. I didn't know he was planning to become a terrorist. But I wasn't entirely surprised when I heard it." 

"Amazing. You'll have to sit down with our military analysts. Apparently you're the only one who knows fuck anything."

Callahan waited. But since Quentin wouldn't say what he should have said, Callahan said it for him. "I want my clearance back. I'm wasted in Media Analysis. I want to get back to work." 

The other man regarded him silently. Finally he sighed. "You fucked up, Jamie. With Theresa. You refuse to see it, but you're the only one."

"Even if that's true." He struggled. "I've done my penance."

Quentin pursed his lips and stared down at his desk for a moment. Then he looked up. "Bottom line. This is very important to us: the mining rights, the projected military base, and most of all keeping good relations with our one and only friend in the region. I'm not eager for the US to get involved in another dirty war in someone's godforsaken mountains. If your old connection to Simontov can help us steer a way through this, it won't go unnoticed. I can promise you that."

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb 

.......... 

And the other Azor, who had once showed Callahan a new edition of a children's history book, updated to include the war. "Look - I am famous now. See my noble gaze in the photograph, looking off into Arbeztan's bright future! But I am not a fan of propaganda. They should have chosen the police photograph taken when I was fourteen, my first arrest - that night they threw me in with the drunks and made men who pinned me face-down and gave me my initiation. That would show the children where legends are truly created." 

............ 

He spent six weeks on site with the UN detachment, interviewing the surviving prisoners even though there were interpreters on hand who could have done the job without him. He got used to the smell of death, but not the sight of the bodies, excavated one by one by the forensics crew and arranged on black plastic tarps for photographs and identification. As the weeks went by, more and more tarps were spread across the mud, so that the infirmary and the death-yard came within a few meters of each other. He had ordered a makeshift wall erected between the two, so that the half-alive prisoners creeping back toward health would not have to look out through the tent flaps at the corpses they had outlived. 

"In the last days of the war, when the rumors of war crimes were coming out, I was transferred out of Sokhrina. You might remember. I entered Marchev with a UN peacekeeping unit. You have my reports." He turned his mind from the memories of the bone pits and the smell. "Of the hundred and seventy prisoners still alive in there, most were Manzani but about two dozen were Karthic. I was trying to get information about the various factions, to help hammer out the peace accords. The U.N. doctors set up an infirmary and the prisoners stayed there for weeks while we tried to locate families and figure out where we could send them for treatment, where they wouldn't be killed to keep them quiet. The Karthic prisoners all looked up to one man: a tall, bearded guy who spoke decent Beztani. He and I spent some time together during those weeks. His name was Jaro Kozlan. He spoke passionately for Karthic self-determination. He'd been worked and starved almost to death - but he was strong enough to leave after just three weeks in the infirmary. Took off in the night. Stole a pair of boots from a Belgian attache as I remember. They must have been his size." 

They both stood. A measured look passed between them as their hands met in a strong clasp.

Corinne was on the phone when he walked out. That was a shame. He would have liked to thank her - for being the only person in the whole damn operation who treated him just the same as she always had. She raised her eyebrows in a question, and he answered with a nod and a wink. She grinned and sent a thumbs-up sign, then mouthed the words, "See you soon" as he went out. 


	6. Chapter 6

Across the fence, the Brazilians played on. The cracked sidewalk beneath her feet had not changed since the morning, when she had walked it in the other direction. Heat and noise pushed at her. Outside the poster shop squatted a couple boys with piercings, both wearing olive green cargo pants ragged at the hem, two skateboards tipped up casually at their feet. In the Corner Cafe, college kids swayed like gilded flowers. At the nearest sidewalk table a goateed type was talking endlessly, while his date lifted a glass of red wine to her plummy lips. They were all part of the same painting - _Boston street scene, early 21st century._ The painting might be hanging on the wall of a museum, the tiny figures going through the same motions eternally: laughing, tipping back glasses, jumping skateboards over a curb, leaping to send a header into the net. And she was the one who did not belong - imprisoned by the painter's unlikely vision, and condemned to creep back and forth across this foreign canvas morning and evening, endlessly looking for the exit. 

Every day when she passed the pawn shop, she thought of buying a gun. 

She never did, though. She never would. Why buy one when she didn't have the nerve to use it? The only thing she was capable of hitting, probably, was herself; a slow, lumbering target, hard to miss. But she would never commit suicide; she lacked the ability to make big decisions. She was someone who fled from the tiniest of choices: which can of cheap coffee to buy, which of her four skirts to wear (all knee-length and matronly); would anyone notice if she went another day without a shower?

Looking back, it seemed impossible that she'd once made a habit of wrenching herself off the rails and waking up in strange places. One day while her father had been asleep on the ratty sofa with the TV blaring, she'd stuck her high school transcript in an envelope; suddenly she found herself in college. When she was twenty-two she'd dropped an application to WorldTeach into the mail - she was on a plane to Amsterdam by summer, and on September one she was hanging up her clothes in the left half of a small closet in a third-floor walkup in Prague. She'd boarded a southbound train with her best friend beside her. The doors had closed behind them and the engine huffed to life and the wheels started turning. Then, in the dead of night, in the narrow corridor between passenger cabins, she'd hitched her pack higher, a strange and resolute passion thrumming through her blood, and she'd put out her hand and said goodbye. She hadn't hesitated, not even when Carana gaped at her in bewilderment, stumbled back, shook her head no--

Back then she'd had a trick of throwing herself forward over chasms, never looking down. No longer.

.

They spent two hours at the WorldTeach party. Their boss was hosting it. Jason was from Philadelphia, where WorldTeach had its headquarters; he'd lived in Prague for four years and thought he knew everything. Angel stood around, downed _vina bila_ out of a mug and wandered in and out of conversations with the corners of her lips tacked up. She had a second glass of wine. She saw Carana talking to a tall man with a little gray at his temples - presumably the famous Under-Minister. Carana was telling him a funny story Angel had heard already, about one of the kids she was tutoring whose English was going nowhere because he was lazy as a stick. "Not like your twins," Carana reassured him. The man laughed and the two of them bent their heads toward each other. Where was his wife? Angel felt a stab of jealousy, or maybe envy; she never knew the difference. Then Brian was at her elbow. At least he was someone to talk to.

Late that night, Carana's voice floated across their bedroom. The room was dark and Angel was only a little drunk; neither of them had made fools of themselves. Carana was bubbling with happiness. "So, you and Brian? I saw you looking cozy in the kitchen." 

"He's all right. One of those guys you sleep with and then he follows you around forever." Carana had a lot of guys of that type, since she was beautiful and tossed her blond hair around in an unconscious way. They fell in love with her every other minute; they couldn't help themselves. Carana took them for granted - she had dated a few of the WorldTeach gang, but they didn't mean anything to her. She came home to Angel and told funny stories about the ways they'd tried to impress her. 

"You've never loved anyone, have you, Ange?" 

"Dunno." She loved Carana - not romantically, but in a delighted, self-sacrificing way that made her feel strong and protective and elevated beyond herself. But that wasn't something she could say.

.

At home she watched TV and ate. She'd been so happy in Prague, before she'd destroyed everything. She paced until sunset came and she went out again, emboldened by the anonymity of darkness. In the dingy grocery store on Harvard Street she threw an assortment of Ramen flavors into her basket. This week she was trying to ration herself to four Ramens a day. She bought the cheap coffee, a head of lettuce, then hovered over a pint of ice cream. It would be her last pint ever, she promised herself. If you were going to stop eating ice cream, you needed the one last pint that you said your goodbyes to. The fact that she had made this promise often did not decrease its potency.

At the end of the aisle she looked through the glass at the frozen orange juice cans. She hesitated. You had to think of the price, also the weight because the walk home was twenty minutes and her bad hip wouldn't let her carry much. You had to think of how far away the next payday was, and whether you wanted to save money by turning off the AC; and was orange juice worth it? Your thoughts went round and round for a while. Finally you realized you were agonizing over stupidities, and then you became furious with yourself and turned away in disgust.

A big man had come up silently behind her and she nearly banged into him.

"Mevarrh," he said. Then he grinned. He was missing one of his canines. "Mevarrh cartakje."

It was an instant before she understood, and then she pulled away in fright so her back was against the cold glass. He was still grinning. He was over six feet and dressed in workman's clothes and he was watching her with enjoyment. He was watching the effect of his words. He knew she was afraid, and he liked it. She put her shopping basket in front of her as a shield. It was all she had.

"Mevarrh cartakje, doma ratun vje Bostona." he said. "Pomun min?" The Beztani words rolled off his tongue, and it was a shock how easily she understood them. It was like stepping through a magic door into a dark land that had always been waiting. _Pretty mountain girl; it's nice to see you in Boston. Don't you remember me?_

She was in a grocery store on Harvard Street. But a door had opened beneath her feet, and she had slid under the earth and was somewhere else.

The man turned, still grinning, and walked out of the aisle.

She stood where she was. She stood there for a long time. She had known many moments like this once - sudden turns where you asked yourself, _is this real, my God, it can't be real--_ But her lie had not been like that for years. She looked up and down the aisle; there was nothing to indicate she was having a nightmare. Finally she edged away from the cold glass behind her and crept around the corner. Shoppers were peering at cans and boxes. The checkout lines snaked along as always. The man was nowhere in sight. She did not know what to do.

A tiny Russian lady trotted past with a glare of irritation. Each passing moment made the event seem more unreal. She was not in danger; she was just losing her mind. Usually that would not be a comforting thought, but today it was. Her hip was now aching, and at any rate she could not stay here forever, nor could she tell anyone. Nervously she took her place in line. After paying, she went out through the automatic door, hesitating in the doorway and darting glances left and right. The street was busy, with plenty of locals still out and the streetlights brightly burning with small winged insects dancing in their haloes. This was a public place and in twenty minutes she would be safely home. She began walking. She breathed shallowly, not looking behind her because that would be inviting monsters. A few people seemed to glance her way with sinister concern, but no one approached her and the man did not reappear. She pushed onward. She reached her building. Nothing bad befell her.

When she was safely locked in at home, she dropped her bag on the counter, ate two Ramens and half the ice cream, stared at herself in the mirror as if looking at a stranger. Then she took a shoebox from under her bed and took out the seven envelopes - six white, one taupe. She lined them up on her rumpled blanket. Before opening each one, she checked the postmark. Of course this was only a ritual. They were already in order, and anyway she didn't need the postmarks to tell her which was which. She knew at a glance; she would know by feel in the dark.

_Dear Angel,_

_I hope everything is going all right for you. If you ever need anything, please call my contact number below. I think of you often._

_Sincerely,_

_James Callahan_

They were all nearly the same, yet each was unique. Only the first was signed James; the others were all Jamie. The sixth was the best because it ended not with _Sincerely_ but _Always your friend._ She had stared at this closing a thousand times, willing it to come to life and rescue her. When the seventh had come - in January, like clockwork - her eyes had flown to the closing. _Sincerely._

What had she hoped for?

Months added into years. The first letter had been a shock and a joy. The second had established a hope. The last five had merely continued a pattern. July was only a month away and she would spend it hovering outside the mailbox like an addict. One day the letter would be waiting and she would be ecstatic; she'd read it over and over but each time her pleasure would diminish slightly; the fruit would yield less juice. Eventually, the moment of the letter's arrival would be well in the past and she would understand that nothing had changed, and nothing would change, except that she had another six-month wait in front of her.

Or maybe July would pass and no letter would come. It was not likely, she knew, that he would write unanswered letters to her for the next fifty years. August would come and then September, and she would know she'd waited too long and lost him. Then she might call that number he kept sending her. Probably not, though. It would be humiliating to chase after him once he was gone.

.

The following night she was pacing in the small space between her bed and the TV, which was showing a tour of Caribbean islands she would never see. She had gone to work and come home and passed almost four hours and eaten three Ramens and she was thinking about the man. He was an invention of her mind, like Orestes' Furies or the monster kids imagined in their closets. If he were real, then she had misunderstood him. If she had not misunderstood, it still didn't matter because it was over and she would never see him again. Her nerves were ragged and she had gulped her last swallow of wine. More would help. Also maybe cigarettes tonight. The closest liquor store was the one on Harvard Street but she had no desire to walk in that direction tonight. Slightly farther away was Liquor Express on Calhoun. She set out into the night.

She didn't smoke often enough to have a favorite brand, so at the counter she copied the woman ahead of her and asked for Marlboro Lights. She'd picked a cheap red wine that her father had favored in his last years - it would be good to drink it; it would keep him close. Hoisting the bag in her arms, she turned down Calhoun toward home.

Almost instantly a tall man fell in step beside her.

She would not look at him. If she looked him in the face, that would be tempting fate. He was no one - a random crazy person, one of many in Boston, and not so different from herself.

"Kravyet tan, mevarrh." There was a smirk in the words.

She walked faster. The wine bottle was heavy and she limped and struggled under its weight. The man's long legs carried him along smoothly. He was keeping his body between her and the street, pinning her and shielding her from sight of the passing cars. He began to speak to her in Beztani. "It's been a long time, precious. You remember me. We had good times together, didn't we?" When she didn't answer, he laughed. "You people killed Mirtallev. Now my people are going to have some revenge. Okay? It's good? We're going to come after you. We're going to hurt you hard, you dog-of-the-mountains." 

She was still ninety-nine percent certain that this was not actually happening to her. One percent of her mind was shrieking an alarm, trying to rouse her from paralysis. She did not want to wake. The man kept talking but he didn't touch her. See? He was just a man ambling beside her for no reason. Sleep on, mind. There is no danger.

Ahead was the corner of a small side street - an alley, actually. It was unlit. The man pressed closer to her - and in that moment she knew what he planned; she could see the end that was coming to her, and her heart began punching the inside of her chest. Her desperate thoughts burst in all directions. If she called out, no one would hear. If she ran, he would be faster. Any action she took would tip her hand that she was trying to escape, and once he saw that, he wouldn't give her a second chance. Doing nothing was easiest and safest, and it came naturally because she was terrified. She would keep her head down and keep walking and maybe nothing bad would happen. The alley was only a short distance ahead now. Across the street, past the next block of student apartments, she saw the glimmering lights of a gas station. She had an idea. But she was too afraid, so she kept walking toward her doom.

The alley was three steps away when fear dropped from her and her body acted. Stopping sharply, she heaved her bag at the man and doubled back, then ran into the street. The heavy crash of glass sounded behind her, and tires squealed; a car was barrelling towards her and she moved her infernally slow, lame, heavy self as well as she could. The driver shouted at her, but she was already limping up on the other curb, still running. She was even with the silent apartment complex, fronted by hedges, that stood back from the street. Then she heard his footsteps behind her. She had failed. Again his looming form drew even with her and he pressed in close, still keeping himself between her and the lights of the street. She was bursting her lungs and he was barely more than striding. She could not run any farther, and there was no use in it anyway since the gas station was hundreds of feet ahead and she knew now she would never reach it.

"You dropped your bottle," he said. "You didn't want to share it with me? Me, my friends, a party, just like the old days?" She was braced for him to grab her but he merely ambled alongside her, smiling. Perhaps he hadn't thought about the gas station. Perhaps she could distract him and he would let her get close enough to make a run for it.

"I don't know your friends," she said in Beztani. She was terrified and it had been a long time since she had spoken in that language. She was not sure if he would understand or if she had gotten the words right. "What kind of party do you like?" Still she wouldn't look at him. Nor should she look at the gas station because she didn't want him guessing her intentions. She kept her eyes on the ground.

"You speak Beztani like you used to," he laughed. "It's good you haven't forgotten. The party will be at your apartment. Two-two-seven-six Marconi Road, the fifth floor, number 508. We'll meet you there soon. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. We'll bring wine, maybe. But it won't be for you."

"Okay," she said, slowly, because the gas station was almost within range. "All right." She couldn't think of anything better, and she waited another three steps until she was even with the front driveway and the waxy yellow light from the windows of the convenience store fell on her. Then she broke and started running, her feet striking unevenly against the fissured pavement, the glass door yielding too slowly as if it were backed by water, but finally allowing her through. She rushed to the counter, where a middle-aged woman in a Shell Oil cap stared at her doubtfully.

"Someone's following me," she gasped. Her hip was killing her but never mind that now.

The woman frowned and squinted toward the window. "You all right?"

The glass door remained closed. Outside she could see him still, standing under the lit-up sign advertising the gas prices as well as chili dogs for two dollars each. He was not pursuing her, merely waiting. She was a mouse gone down a hole, and the hole had only one exit. Maybe not, though. Maybe there was a back door and she could sneak away, circle back, dash and creep along the backs of buildings until she lost him. Then she could find her way home.

Except he knew her address and her apartment number. Was he strong enough to force her door? Did he have a gun? Would he be waiting outside the elevator on the fifth floor with his hand in his pocket?

"That's him? You wanna call the police?" The woman pushed her phone forward on the counter. "Call the police; they'll run him off. What is he - a boyfriend or just one of the crazies?"

The police would run him off. They might take her to the station and have her write out a complaint. They might drive her home and escort her to her door, even look inside to make sure no one was already there, maybe in the pantry, maybe in the bedroom. Then they would leave.

And then?

If she had anywhere to run to, any family at all; a friend she'd kept in touch with, or the minister's home number--

But she was lying to herself. She was circling the truth, because there was only one answer and it was staring her in the face and she was afraid of it. _You board the train and the doors close behind you._ She looked outside. The man had crossed his arms like a villain from a comic book. He had spread his feet and planted them as if prepared to wait her out forever. 

Angel touched the phone. It was plastic; it didn't bite her finger. She looked at the woman. "Can I call long distance?"

The woman shrugged. "It's not my dime."

She stumbled twice over the number and had to start over. Finally it rang, and a mechanical voice asked her to enter his extension. After two rings, another mechanical voice came on the line. "Extension 203. Please leave a message, and you'll be called back promptly."

She was fighting for breath. It was hard to get the words out. "It's Angel Morov," she said finally. "Angel from Boston. From Beztan."


	7. Chapter 7

Callahan leaned over the grill and flipped up the edge of a burger. It wasn't quite perfect; Theresa liked hers practically charred. He said, "We could go out to dinner next week. I could make reservations in town."

"I'd like that, hon."

It had been five days since the call from Quentin in the night. Every morning he and Theresa went off to their respective jobs, same as always, and every evening they watched the news, chatted about nothing consequential, and sometimes strolled together in the neighborhood after dark when it was cooler. Their routine hadn't changed. He had gone out of town on sudden business Tuesday and come back late, but even then she had been careful to ask no questions. The cold front he'd expected from her had never materialized. 

"Wednesday?" he suggested.

"Sorry, that's no good. Late meeting."

"Monday, then. The class I'm teaching ends at four. I can be home by five."

"Monday's good. So - you're still teaching, huh?"

He understood the subtext. "Nothing's changed. Still teaching, still translating. Quentin just set me up to meet with some people; that's all. They want to hear what I know about Simontov."

She looped her arms around his neck and put a cool kiss on his cheek. "This is the part where I'm supposed to pretend to believe you, like a dutiful wife."

"Nothing's changed. They're not giving me back my clearance. And now, tell me how Guatemala is going." The burgers hissed and he took up the spatula and flipped them over. Through the broad French doors he saw she'd already set the kitchen island with paper napkins and frosted glasses. Between them, the margarita pitcher was beaded invitingly with silver droplets of condensation. Which reminded him: he should put sealant on the deck again. 

She groaned. "Last minute disaster. The scrub nurse is backing out for a death in the family. So here are my options: do I send a regular RN to do a scrub nurse's job, badly, or delay the trip a week and risk getting into the harvesting season."

"Hm. What's wrong with the harvesting season?"

"Everyone will be too busy picking _chobarra_ leaves to come to our clinic. At least, that's the fear. Our Mayan coordinator on the ground is trying to figure out if maybe they'll come anyway." She stared out the window, but she wasn't seeing; she was moving jigsaw pieces in her mind, calculating odds of success, arranging strategies and back-up strategies. Towards the end of foreign service orientation when they were just getting to know each other, he had been floored when she chose the Admin cone. Wasn't that the career for people who wanted to count Embassy paper clips? But as she explained to him the layered intrigues she saw in it, he developed a fine appreciation of her talent set. Fuck knows, he wouldn't last a day doing what she did.

"You'll do the right thing," he said. "It will all come off without a hitch, thanks to you being brilliant at your job."

"I really am, you know? Even if I didn't come by it honestly."

He didn't answer that. The burgers were crunchy-dark. He assembled a masterpiece for each of them and handed her her plate. 

"You're thinking I'm ungrateful," she said. "You're probably right. Smells delicious, hon."

On their third date she had confessed that burgers were her favorite food. He'd paid attention - he was smitten already - and taught himself to cook them, then never learned to cook another thing. He took a bite, but she didn't pick hers up. She said suddenly, "I've never killed a cow. You know that?"

"Have you killed anything else?" he asked, laughing, but she gave him a look of surprise, eyebrows raised, and he realized what he'd said. "No, wait. I withdraw the question." But the words ran round and round in his head, and neither of them spoke, and finally he said, "Really?" She tipped her head in a way that meant, _what do you think?_ He couldn't fathom it. Admin cone was desk work - arranging salaries, doing background checks on local hires, importing generators and making sure the embassy water bill got paid on time. He had always assumed that the company recruited her to do on-site paperwork adjustments - fixing passports, arranging cover stories.

"I equipped expeditions," she said quietly. "Imports, exports, special deliveries. There's one of us at every embassy. We transfer items back and forth to each other, whatever's needed, or we get it from supply points and make sure there's no trace." The burger sat in front of her. "I shouldn't have told you that."

He was shocked. Not by the work she'd done - which, come to think of it, was something he should have figured out himself years ago - but that she would suddenly come out with it. In all their years in the company, and the four that she'd been out of it, she had never wavered on her oath of confidentiality. NTK, it was called coyly - the need-to-know principle, the company's version of the Prime Directive. She'd been the one who was rigidly true to it, while he, like Captain Kirk, had seen the option of flexibility. "We're married;" he'd always laughed. "They know we talk to each other. This doesn't count." And when he figured out whe'd been right all along and he'd been wrong, it was too late to take it back.

"Well," he said, "then it wasn't you. You weren't responsible." He meant to be reassuring. She hadn't actually _killed_ anyone. 

She regarded him. "They put the cows on a chute and make them walk. They're all panicking, mooing like crazy, these huge animals; trying to back away because they know what's coming. There's a guy waiting with a bolt gun, bang, shot to the brain, and then the cow tumbles off the chute into a kind of bloody pit, where there's a conveyor belt that carries the carcass into the slaughterhouse. Then the next cow is pushed forward. Bang. The next and the next and the next. The guy stands there all day and kills and kills. Usually it's some Mexican guy. Sometimes the guy goes a little nuts from it. They make him see a counselor every four months." She picked up the burger and looked at it. "The guy who does all the killing: that's the guy you have to respect."

"Are you saying you don't like burgers anymore? This conversation has taken a turn toward the macabre."

"Oh no. I still love them." She sank her teeth into the burger and made a happy noise, over the top, almost orgasmic. "God, it's _fantastic._ You see how I am? I could never give this up." She closed her eyes and took another bite as if lost in bliss. He was the one whose appetite was suddenly failing. He was thinking about the cow carcasses in the pit. Or sheep. Isn't that what people said about Marchev? _Sheep to the slaughter._ At Marchev, the prisoners had been made to dig their own graves.

"Do you think they really wanted both of us?" she asked. Another surprise: it wasn't like her to mention old times. The call from Quentin must have shaken something loose. "It seems statistically unlikely, if that "only three percent are recruited" line is true. Maybe it was a ploy all along. They had their eye on one of us, but they took us as a couple so they'd have more control."

They'd both been five-year veterans of the foreign service when the company came to him. He and Theresa were spending two months together in Arlington, in government housing, awaiting their next postings. "A chance to serve your country in a special way," Quentin had said. "As a foreign service officer, you're already part of an elite group. We think you have what it takes to do something even more challenging, maybe a little dangerous. Only three percent of FSO's get recruited. But think carefully. Once you sign, you'll spend a life keeping secrets. Even your wife can't know you work for us. And the company is a lifelong commitment."

The night before his contract-signing, he took Theresa to Baltimore. They took a paddle-boat out in the Inner Harbor and let themselves drift for a while, holding hands and watching jellyfish pump inefficiently beneath their keel. The green depths gave him the willies, wondering what might be down there, so to distract himself, he did an imitation of the Senegalese prime minister. She laughed so hard he grabbed her by the shoulder of her sweatshirt to make sure she didn't fall overboard.

"We're a floating island," she said, turning to survey the glowing Domino's sign and the lights of the harbor malls and the red-lit glass elevators sweeping up and down the Hilton. "You know what I've loved about us, these past five years? Being able to tell you anything. I'd love to think that will never change."

"Me too," he'd answered.

And the next day at C43-- She'd turned when he entered, her hair pinned back over one ear with a hairclip he'd sent her from Paris. Pen already in her hand, her name already signed to the page in front of her. Quentin, leaning back in his chair, had smiled benignly at the two of them in their frozen horror-struck tableau. "We always do it this way when we get a couple. Wouldn't miss it for the world. Mr. Bond, meet Mrs. Bond."

That night, in the queen-sized bed in the duplex with the hum of traffic reaching them through the poplars, Theresa had kissed him and they'd held hands and stared up at the ceiling. Finally she'd been the one to say it. "So how is this supposed to feel? Both of us finding out we're each married to a stone cold liar." They'd clasped each other. A current ran between them, convulsing his hands and making his body draw tight around hers. He felt a driving determination to keep possession of her forever.

He took a small bite of the burger. He had to give himself credit: twenty-two years had made him pretty good at turning them out. "If they did take me back into Ambassadorial," he said, "how much would it bother you?"

"Jamie. You have to ask me that?"

"You don't want me getting my hands dirty again."

"No. But I know how much I've cost you." She took his hand. "I won't hold you back. Sometimes I think leaving was the unethical choice after all." She looked out into the dusk, where windows glowed beyond tree branches, and children's voices came from backyard swingsets. "I appreciate everything I have, you know? I know how fortunate I am just to be able to stand in the street and insult the president in a loud voice, or admit I'm an atheist and not be burned at the stake for it. To live in a place without bombs falling and body parts flying past the window. How many people in the world have that?" She smiled bitterly. "I know what I am. I'll eat the meat but I refuse to kill the cow. I make someone else do that."

"You fight eye diseases in third-world countries. Nothing wrong with that."

"I know. Thank you." She finished the burger and wiped her fingers carefully on her napkin. "I made a will four years ago; did you know that? Before I tendered my resignation. I didn't know if they would let me go - but then they did, and got me the job at Vision, so clearly I was just being overly pessimistic about their world view. Not to mention, melodramatic." She laughed. "It's in my sock drawer, in case you ever need it."

"Hey now. Don't be planning to die on me," he said.

It was a joke, but not a funny one, because as soon as he said it he thought of Azor. There was enough crime in Washington; he could see her in a flash, getting laid out by a stray bullet while going to lunch, or getting waylaid in the local park when she went running. He could see himself after her funeral, knocking around this too-big house alone. 

"I wish I could tell you," she said. "I wish I could tell you some of the things I've done."

He hugged her, feeling the compact warmth of her frame. Suddenly the walls between them seemed small and surmountable. They were both treasurers of unsavory knowledge, and this united them. Marchev had devastated them both - only, he'd looked at it rationally and not overreacted, while she'd lost her head and done something she couldn't take back. That was all. It had been hell, but they'd put it behind them, and he forgave her. She was like him. They were two good people who loved their country and wanted to do the right thing. 

His phone beeped in his hip pocket; he let it go to voicemail. She gave him an understanding look as he disentangled himself and stepped out on the back porch. He glanced over his shoulder before he dialed. Theresa was stepping lightly around the kitchen, clearing the plates, wiping the ring where the margarita pitcher had stood, returning everything to its customary shine. 

He played back the message He could hear nothing at first except rapid breathing. Then Angel's voice came over the line.


	8. Robb's on C

Robb's on C Street opened at seven but was near-empty between eight-thirty and noon. Callahan watched the door as he sipped a coffee. The hairs on his arms were standing at attention. _5 mins,_ Gerry had texted. Three were already down, and Gerry was notoriously punctual, a Swiss watch of a man. Yet strangely, he'd hated Geneva when they'd worked there. Possibly he resented the fact that all the Swiss were just as Gerry as he was, or more so. 

It was ten thirty-six, and in two minutes he would be seeing Angel Moro walk through the swinging door.

"She's keyed up," Gerry had reported from a rest stop on the Jersey turnpike. "Had me kinda worried she might bolt out into traffic. You know, this girl of yours, she's a little--" He let the sentence hang.

"A little what?"

"A little different."

Well, she'd been a little different from the moment he'd found her. Now she was a church secretary. He could picture her: fierce and fragile at the same time, her slight form made of bone and flame, now poured into a pencil skirt and a severe high-collared blouse. The haunted, half-wild gaze would still burn darkly through a thin disguise of wire-frame glasses.

The door swung open. He recognized Gerry at a glance; the short woman beside him, however, was a stranger. He sat back in shock. Under a frowze of straggling dark curls, her face was rounded; it had a padded look around the jaw. A loose shirt slumped carelessly over her front, topping a wrinkled black skirt and scuffed shoes; the sturdy kind without a heel. Her tired, past-caring look was one he'd seen in women all over the world - the ones who stood in line for allotments of bread and beets, with grubby-fisted children hanging at the long folds of their skirts. They cooked stew and slaved for their in-laws. They had dull expressions and resigned themselves to fate. He'd have walked by her on the street. 

He was an idiot. People changed. What had he imagined? 

An idiot.

She was hanging back in the doorway. Gerry bent and spoke to her, and she followed him in, her left shoulder dipping a fraction as she stepped forward. Her limp had lessened; it was barely noticeable now. "Over here," he waved. Up close, she seemed even more common, even a little unwashed. He greeted her with his best diplomat's manner. She stared at him speechlessly. Finally she said, "Thanks for this. I didn't know who else to call." She looked at Gerry. "I'm sorry you had to drive so far."

"Not a problem, ma'am."

Her hand was fleshier than any he was used to shaking. One of the fingers was crooked and she winced a little at his grip, making him let go of her immediately. He had forgotten about her hands. She still had all the deformities, but she'd lost the parts he'd loved. She was no longer starved and wary, like a creature of the forest ready to bolt.

Gerry asked him, "Do you want me to stay close?"

"Why don't you see the sights. I'll call soon. Less than an hour."

After he and Angel took seats in the booth, Callahan tried to keep from staring at her for traces of the girl he'd known. He wanted to resurrect the old connection by bringing up the past. _Remember the day you finally told me your name? The walks we took around the UN tents as you got stronger? That first night in the VA hospital when you wanted me to stay?_

"You look good," he said at last. But she only gave him a wry look, as if mocking him for the easy lie. "How have you been?"

She shrugged, no more than a twitch of the shoulder. That was familiar, like the limp. "Just working. You know." That hooded answer, he knew that too. She had never been much of a talker.

"I guess you got my letters," he said.

"I should have written back. I'm sorry about all this. I was just-- " She shook her head. "I can't believe you sent someone to get me and bring me here, eight hours' drive through the night." That reminded him that she hadn't slept last night - Gerry had picked her up from a gas station and they'd gone back to her place so she could pack, and then she'd been in the back seat of his car all night. Maybe she'd look better after some rest. He doubted it.

"Ah, he's an old friend. And that's pretty much his job."

She was glancing around now, shooting quick nervous looks toward the street and the kitchen. The waiter approached them, a tall young man, and she drew back in the booth and wouldn't meet his eyes. "Come on, I'm buying," Callahan told her. "You want breakfast?" Coffee was all she agreed to. She didn't look up until the waiter was gone.

"That man couldn't have followed you here," he told her. "There's no way. It's safe."

"I know. I just can't stop imagining he's behind me."

"Did you recognize him?"

She stared down fixedly. "He was from Marchev." She played with the salt and pepper shakers, stacking, unstacking. "He was one of them."

He had to do the next part carefully. He had been thinking about his approach ever since she'd called the night before. "Angel. Why do you think he approached you? What did he want?"

She gave him a stare. Then, with a harsh short laugh she said, "What do you think?"

At Marchev she'd started off like this: hostile as feral cat. Now that his initial shock at her appearance was wearing off, he could see past the schlumpy clothes and extra weight to all the hidden wounds she defended with her arched back. She'd been an innocent girl before she was destroyed by monsters. He'd tried to rescue her, but four years later she still suffered. "Did you know that Azor Mirtallev was assassinated a few days ago?"

"I heard that on the news." The waiter returned with her coffee, and once again she stared down until he left. Then she put two sugars into it, pouring them slowly. She began stirring with an air of great concentration.

"The man who stalked you might have wanted revenge for Mirtallev's death."

She kept the liquid swirling, staring into it as if fascinated, but her posture was stiff. "I don't know what you mean. I don't have anything to do with Azor Mirtallev."

"Please. I'm trying to help you here." When she still wouldn't look up he said, "I saw you in the UN infirmary all those weeks, remember? I saw you talking to some of the male prisoners. I heard you, too. Speaking Karthic to them."

She jerked upright at that, eyes wide with fright. "You don't know Karthic!"

"No," he agreed. "I surely don't. But I know it when I hear it." It was a strange, guttural language, unrelated to the Slavic tongues. You heard it once - even in a babbled scream, even in a desperate plea with the laughter of two Beztani secret police undercutting it - and you never forgot.

He went on. "At Marchev, when I was working to bring you back into the US, I had to hunt down all your records. Your birth certificate lists your parents' birthplace: Damrot, Beztan. I had to look it up." She didn't answer. "It's at a pretty good elevation in the Kar-Paval range."

"Right," she said. She had gone back to stirring, now with a violent grip on the plastic straw. "Yes. My parents were born in Damrot. They were cousins. They came here as kids, after their whole village was burned to the ground by Beztani settlers. That's when my grandparents gave up their homeland and set out down the mountains carrying what little they had left. The whole family walked two hundred miles: out of the highlands and all the way to the sea. My mother and father had to get engaged once they got to America because they were the only two children who survived. So yes. We're Karthic. I'm a, what, a Karthic-American. So what?"

"All right. Will you look at me?"

Slowly she raised her eyes. She'd set her face hard against him, but at least he had her attention. "Listen to me. If a guard from Marchev recognized you on the street and just wanted a little sadistic fun, that's one thing. But if he's targeting you in revenge for his dead leader, that's something else. He won't stop until he's killed you."

She was shaking now, her hand on the cup, and it made a tinny rattle against the saucer. She put her hands into her lap. "He called me _kartakja,"_ she said. "He said he was going to get me because of Mirtallev. Because Mirtallev had been killed by one of us." A sheen of tears entered her eyes, and she blinked hard and sat up very tall. "I'll change apartments. I'll have enough money if I can get my full deposit back."

"He'll find you again, Angel. He won't give up. You can't stay in Boston."

"Don't you understand; I can't go anywhere else!" Her forehead creased itself into parallel dents between her eyebrows. "I don't have anyone. I don't want to run. I'm not going to sleep in shelters or under bridges. I can't live like that. I'd rather go back and wait in my own home. If he wants me, he can come and get me." She stared across the room, her eyes losing focus, the past snaking out to claim her. She had a burrow and she wouldn't leave it easily. No matter that it was a crap studio in a decrepit building on the edge of a ghetto. No matter that it was no longer safe.

"Maybe I can find you a better place," he said. "I have some connections. But you have to be truthful with me. How good is your Karthic?" Unthinkingly he reached out and touched her wrist, but she jerked away. He remembered too late: she wasn't like other girls.

"My parents spoke it. It was my first language growing up."

"But have you used it since then? You knew those Karth fighters in the infirmary. You were living in the mountains with the Karth, weren't you? That's where you were, before you were captured and taken to Marchev." He could see her fear. "Just tell the truth. It's not a crime."

Reluctantly she nodded. "There are some villages between the peaks in the northern part of the range, above Tamar." She swallowed. " I was hiking there; it was spring break. And then the war started and everything went crazy and I couldn't leave. A family let me stay with them. I watched the children and worked with the women. I was there for about eighteen months."

 _The spring-break trip from Prague._ He remembered that part. She'd gotten separated from the American girl she was traveling with, and the other girl had never made it out. Imagine: two girls coming down on the train, wearing flippy floral dresses and sandals, dark sunglasses pushed up into their hair. Utterly innocent of the massacre they were speeding towards.

He looked at her. She was no stranger now, but Angel as he remembered her. She was a damaged survivor crawling up from hell, dragging behind her a history he shuddered to think of. Under the outward clumsiness of her appearance, she was still that girl.

He took two photographs from his briefcase and put them on the table in front of her. The first showed a man with sunken cheeks and a ragged beard, staring straight into the camera with grim apathy. His age was indeterminate; he looked ready for the grave and might have been anywhere between forty and eighty. The second photo showed the same man about three weeks later, almost clean-shaven. He was still gaunt and unsmiling, but clearly no older than mid-thirties. "Do you know this man?"

She stared at the pictures. "No."

"You spent a lot of time with him in the infirmary. Listen to me." He had to get it out of her. "I already know his name, and I think you do too. If you can name him, that's enough to prove your story about living in the mountains during the war. And with that as proof, I might be able to find you some work and a place to stay. You might be hired as a cultural liaison or a language expert. You'd be safe. But without any proof, that's different. Then all I can give you is bus fare back to Boston. I won't be able to protect you."

He could see her struggle. After a long moment she muttered, "I know him. That's Jaro Koslan." She crossed her arms and regarded him stonily.

"How did you meet?"

"Christ - we barely knew each other. His parents lived in Nevsanek where I was staying. He visited them sometimes. That's why we talked in the infirmary. It turned out he'd been at Marchev months longer than I had. He wanted to hear news of Nevsanek, and whether his parents had been all right when I last saw them."

"All right. Listen to me." He hid his excitement, even as his next moves unrolled before him. He'd have to get Quentin's approval before he could make her any promises. "I'm going to have Gerry take you to a hotel. You'll be safe. I'll call in to check on you. Will you be all right?"

She nodded. "But my rent is due tomorrow. And I'm missing work. I forgot to call in."

She was chewing her lip, Jaro Kozlan forgotten. The petty details of her life filled him with pity. "Don't worry. Call your boss from the hotel; tell him you're sick; your grandmother died; whatever. Don't worry about the rent. We can take care of that later. I'll take care of everything. Okay?" She nodded, looking dazed. 

He called Gerry, who was a couple blocks away and answered through a mouthful of pretzel. "All right. In this traffic it will be eleven minutes."

Angel's uneasiness returned as they went out to the sidewalk to wait. Her eyes cut back and forth along the street, picking up every shop door that opened, the well-shod men climbing out of limousines. Finally Gerry pulled up at the curb. As Callahan opened the rear door for her, she turned to him. "I don't understand how he could find me in Boston. I don't know how he could have recognized me, even."

In the back seat of the car was a plastic suitcase. Its sides were bulging and the zipper was stuck on a puff of dark fabric that extruded through the gap. The sight made him sad. "I would," he said gallantly. "I'd recognize you anywhere." At that she looked quickly away. She remained still for a moment, her nervous movements suddenly gone quiet like she'd come under a spell: a bird arrested in mid-flight.


	9. train doors open

After their recruitment, he and Theresa had been sent to the company base in South Carolina for ten months of training. What hers had covered, he still didn't know - their classes were separate and they were forbidden to discuss them - but his included tradecraft, physical skills, firearm proficiency, and communications. The first three were exciting, exhausting, and completely useless. But communications, colloquially known as 'the art of lying,' had taught him everything he'd ever need to know. As the C43 elevator carried him steadily upward for the second time in a week, his game face arranged itself. Through the years it had grafted itself so seamlessly in place that he no longer noticed its artificiality. He greeted Corinne, whose smile glittered like sunlight on snow as she waved him on. He was already certain of success.

"She's a great source," he told Quentin. "Speaks Karthic. Knows the mountains. Lived there for almost two years. She was close to Jaro Koslan. She knows his home village and she stayed with his family during the war. She's got exactly the ground-level intel we're going to need." _And I'm the one who found her, you son of a bitch._

"This is that American girl - the one who was found in the concentration camp?" Quentin looked bemused. "Fine. Bring her in and have her questioned. Let's see what we can learn."

"Well, that's a problem." He explained about Angel's stalker. "People care about her enough to want her dead. She can't stay where she is. And the other problem is, Marchev left her damaged."

"What kind of damaged?"

"Not very trusting, and not forthcoming with authorities. She'll need a little time. So: I have a proposal."

Quentin listened and said nothing. Afterward he stroked his jaw. Then he laughed. Callahan felt some of his confidence slip, though no chink showed in his composure.

"And just when do you want to set this up?" Quentin asked.

"As soon as possible. Right now she's camped in a Washington hotel, doing no good to anyone."

"Well." Quentin frowned. "It does bring up an interesting point. Mirtallev's assassin has stabilized; he's in transit to the Block as we speak. But there's a hitch." Quentin tapped a pen against his desk. "Turns out he speaks almost no Beztani. And we don't have anyone who interprets Karthic, do we?"

"No, sir. But." It had already occurred to him that in bringing Angel to Theta, he'd be delivering her into the company's jaws and their methods wouldn't necessarily be gentle. He would have to stay close and run interference for her. "She's Karthic herself. She won't be eager to help us interrogate a countryman, even if he's a terrorist. And the Block is--" He thought of Angel as he'd first seen her, in a dim concrete pen with a stench that made him gag, in the company of twelve other women in bloody rags that did a poor job of hiding what had been done to them. "She was held at Marchev. The Block is not a place she'll want to know about."

"You could probably think of a way around her delicate sensibilities," Quentin said drily. And in fact, even as he said it, Callahan's mind was already racing ahead, turning that corner. "What about the background check. That takes months."

"I know. But she could stay under visitors' restrictions until she's cleared."

Quentin peered at him. "Tell me she'll pass her security intake, at least."

"Of course - she was just a regular college kid before Marchev, and since then she's been a secretary in Boston." 

"All right; I'll speak with Theta about a six-month consulting contract. Meanwhile, get with Paul Cabrese about the Karth prisoner. He'll need to coordinate his interrogation with your Angel Morov project."

Callahan had been rolling his weapons into position for a drawn-out battle. The sudden collapse of his foe thew his balance, making him topple forward. "You'll arrange it? Today?" Quentin was rising to see him out. Just like that.

Just like that.

"Full of surprises, aren't you," Quentin said.

He recovered quickly enough. "I told you I'm wasted in Media."

"Huh. If your little bird gives us anything useful, I'll be impressed. Until then, keep translating those news reports."

.

The hotel room was spacious. Maybe too spacious. Angel seemed more nervous than yesterday as she opened the door to him. She had changed clothes but looked just as badly put-together, even a little sick.

"You okay? I've been arranging things all morning. It's good news. I've gotten you a job."

"You're serious?"

He grinned. "Theta base. Officially it's the Hunter Paulson Center; an auxiliary training site for Americans heading out to sensitive parts of the world. Most people who pass through are foreign service or military personnel, but you'll also see the civilian corps, CDC workers, and so on. We teach sixty languages as well as cultural studies and classes in the governance and security problems of various countries. I've gotten you in. You'll be a consulting specialist in Karthic language and culture. You'll be safe."

She took in the details. He was mid-sentence when she leaped up and began pacing; he could not keep his eyes from the uneven dip in her shoulder as she moved. So familiar, so disturbing for what it recalled.

"My apartment in Boston. What should I do about it?"

"We can give you a moving stipend and send people to pack your things and put them in storage. For now, it might be easier if you just let us pay your rent." The rent couldn't be much. If the company didn't come through with the write-off, he'd pay it himself.

She couldn't stay still; kept pacing and flicking her eyes from wall to wall. She seemed more than nervous, more like off-kilter. Is this how she'd been for the past four years? Yet she'd held down a job and managed on her own in Boston. "Listen," he said. "When you get there, you'll meet with the security staff. They'll have a bunch of routine questions. Your background, where you've traveled, have you been in any trouble with law. Even, well, personal problems." He did not want to spell it out for her. "They'll check up on your answers. If they catch you lying they'll throw you out, and I won't be able to stop them."

She turned on him. It was a tiger's movement, savage and quick, and it took him aback. She snapped, "What would I have to lie about?"

"Nothing," he said, spreading his hands. "I'm just letting you know."

She continued to glare for a moment, then turned away abruptly and resumed pacing and biting at her bottom lip. For the first time, he began to wonder what he had gotten into. A cold finger touched the back of his neck.

He shook it off.


	10. Theta

She was in Virginia, on a cement footpath in a place that a few days ago she'd never heard of, and James Callahan - Jamie, after all these years - was really and truly beside her. She was not imagining this. Three nights ago she had gone out to buy wine and cigarettes. Since then she'd been put in a car and slung down the highway to DC. She'd watched the sun rise and set and rise and set and rise again and she'd never gone to sleep, so her lost brain was still stuck in Tuesday while everyone else had gone ahead to Friday. Her head throbbed. She was in Virginia. She was following Jamie up the path toward the crest of a small hill. Neat grass lay to both sides, a rim of dark forest was in front of her and the campus called Theta was behind her. She kept repeating these facts to herself, trying to keep her head straight.

She had reached out for the phone in that convenience store on Calhoun and, touching it, had sprung herself through the keyhole into a different world. The smallest choices change everything.

Halfway up the gentle slope she stopped, out of breath. The edge of the trees lay ahead. Hills rose beyond it, going on forever - green and spongy in the foreground, then blurring farther off into undulating lines of blue and indigo with pale sky beyond. She swung around to look down at the shallow bowl of Theta, which was a bald patch of human civilization shaved into the encircling forest. Orderly quadrangles were framed by buildings of tan brick and smoked glass. Footpaths crossed the quads, and people - some in suits, some in military uniform - strode along them. Everyone looked purposeful. Sinuous roads slid around the outside of the base. She had already seen the forest from within, during the drive from Washington when they'd tunneled through the woods for half an hour before reaching Theta's gate. it had been a narrow road most of the way, and Jamie had taken the dips and turns one-handed.

She'd expected Theta to be different. It would have concrete barracks like fungal growths, and rutted mud all around, a grinding metal gate that trucks rumbled through all night long, and a double chain-link fence to keep her in. It was run by the Americans - so at least there would be no gunshots like hammer-blows, no gouged pits in the mud that filled half with rainwater in the storms, and later with worse things. No screams. No buckets of grey water with clotted floating rags and a sharp metal handle that sliced her palm; she would not be scrubbing the cracked walls of the Happy Rooms and dragging the bucket to the back door of the kitchen to push it over so that the water, red now, could run out across the concrete slab. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself repeatedly as the road slipped backward under the wheels of Jamies's car and she chewed the edge of her thumbnail until it bled.

Not until they drew to a stop next to a low building and Jamie waved his badge at a trio of men in uniform, did she see how wrong she'd been. The place looked nothing like Marchev; it looked like Boston College. In fact, the first place they stopped was like a bursar's office. She was photographed and fingerprinted and signed a hundred forms and then a man in khaki handed her an ID badge. "This is a two-day pass," he explained. "You'll get a blue pass - a longterm visitor's pass - after your security check. With a blue pass you have a nine pm curfew."

At nine pm every night she would be in her apartment behind a locked door. Why would she wander in the dark?

She was still looking down at the base below her. Spots were dancing on the edges of her peripheral vision. "I'm sorry," Jamie said. "You're tired, aren't you? I shouldn't be dragging you around like this. It's just, I thought you might like the quiet. I'm from West Virginia, so this feels like home to me. You head north or south and the foothills go on for hundreds of miles. West, they rise into the blue ridge highlands. I guess it's nothing like what you were used to in the Kar-Paval though. Those are some rugged mountains."

In the Kar-Paval, at Nevsanek's elevation, small crooked forests clung to the slopes as if growing out of rock. At higher elevations it was all crags and caves and needled scrub no taller than she was, and when the weather turned in mid-autumn, the land became brutal and beautiful. If a storm hit when you were away from the village, you had to find a cave quickly. The only water to be had was snow melted over cookfires by the women, or by the men if there weren't any women. Streams that in autumn had been silver twists on rock, became black icefalls leaping from the cliffs. On the lower flanks the terrain was gentler; there, forest alternated with sloping plains where sheep could graze. The trees were different from these ones - beech and oak, widely spaced with only low shrubs and moss at their feet. Virginia's lush excess was foreign to her. But Jamie was right. If her head weren't aching, if it weren't for the spots and a skin-crawling shakiness she couldn't get free of, she would like the enfolding quiet that emanated from the lush green wall ahead. She could crawl inside and it would cradle her.

"The base is fenced in, but you have to hike two miles into the trees before you'll find that fence. There's a network of trails that goes all the way around. Just, if you come out here, make sure you keep your badge with you and stay on the paths. Copperheads mostly hide under the rocks, but every couple years someone gets bit." He was taking short, slow steps to match her pace. It was embarrassing. She tried to move faster, but her hip hurt and her head was throbbing. He thought she was frail and pitiful. He was probably right, but she hated him thinking it.

Just an hour before, he had insisted on carrying her suitcase into her new apartment, leading the way across the upper quadrangle toward a dozen identical two-story buildings that stood like a row of straight teeth. "You're going to be in number 42, suite A." He showed her how to unlock the door with her new ID badge. "Actually, these are just your temporary quarters. Number 42 was closed last month due to maintenance problems. They haven't gotten around to renovating it yet, but they couldn't find anywhere else for you on such short notice. The good news is you'll be the only one in the whole place - so no crying babies down the hall. The bad news is, you won't have housekeeping services. And the AC might decide to quit at any moment."

They trudged back down the slope to number 42, and she waved her badge in front of the electronic eye. "I'll be back in two hours to take you to the intake. It's at Wills Hall. That's on the other side of the grounds. Try to rest."

She nodded. But she knew she wouldn't rest. She was a beetle who'd fallen into a glass bottle, too steep to climb, from which she could only look out through the wavy glass and see everyone else walking free beyond her reach. She was a boat slipped off its moorings. She was going down a playground slide that went on too long and too fast and wouldn't let her off. She knew this feeling, when faces of the sanely anchored multitudes went by in a blur and you wanted to grab at them and scream for help, but you didn't dare. Because what was the first rule of crazy? _Never let them know._

Suite 42-A was huge but barely furnished. A quick walk-through turned up nothing but a bed with sheets and blankets piled at its foot, and in the dining room a blond wood table with four chairs. Three bent hangers occupied the closet, kept company by a rusted iron and a broom. In the pantry were three boxes of Corn Flakes a canister of raisins. She cast herself down in the bed, pulling the blanket over her head to block out the light. It didn't work; the sun from the window beat at her anyway. She balled up the blanket, which was trembling because of the shake in her hands. She ground her face against the fabric. She moaned and dug her stubby nails into her thighs; she cried out in frustration.

"Jaro," she muttered.

If she pressed the blanket against her eyeballs hard enough, she could see him: not the sucked-dry column of walking bones he'd been at the end, at Marchev when they were reunited, but Jaro as he'd been in the mountains: fearless and beloved by all, with a rifle on his shoulder and black beard jutting out when he laughed. He was probably laughing now, lounging outside a stone house at Nevsanek or one of the high villages, boasting and arguing with the others and flicking sparks from the end of his cigarette. And she was here. And she could stack up those two facts in a hundred ways, sugar them with all the extenuating circumstances until the spots danced faster and she thought she might vomit. But there it was. And it was what it was, and she'd have to answer for it.

She was so tired, she felt drugged. Her overheated brain finally slowed and gradually her stomach stopped churning. And then-- there was thunder, a rolling storm coming over the peaks, dangerous-- and she had to find shelter quickly but she was so stuporous and heavy that it was hard to get up. She lifted her head and gradually recognized her surroundings. She was in a bed. It was not thunder she was hearing. She was at the place called Theta and someone was pounding at the door.

"Sorry," she mumbled, standing in her doorway and raking her fingers through her hair. "I was asleep. I'm ready, though." She had meant to brave the shower, even drag the iron out of the closet and make herself as respectable as she could. Now it was too late, and Jamie was looking at her with concern. Or possibly disgust; she couldn't tell.

At Wills Halls Jamie handed her off to a man whose name she didn't catch. He took her into a room with a conference table and a smoked glass window along one wall. Another man - blond, younger, wearing khaki - was already seated at the table; he had an open notepad in front of him and smiled encouragingly as she came in. Sarai took a seat beside him. No blood spatters were visible on the walls. Nevertheless, her skin had gone cold and was trying very hard to crawl off her body and slither to safety under the door. She found a spot against the wall and pressed her back into it.

"Have a seat," said the deputy security chief. What choice did they leave her? She sat across from them and stuck her hands under the table. Her face was hot and she was afraid they could see her start to sweat. The blond man smiled again and told her to relax.

He began with questions she didn't mind answering. Yes, she had been born in Boston, grown up there, no foreign travel. Mother and brother dead when she was three. Lost her father during her junior year at college. She had learned Karthic at home. She was not a member of any communist party, or any other political organization, foreign or domestic. She had never been in trouble with the law. Her first time out of the US had been the job at WorldTeach.

"Why did you go to Prague?"

"It seemed exciting. My last year of college, I was just sick of everything. I guess I wanted to see the world."

They asked about the apartment on Plavicka Ulice. Yes, she had roomed with another American, also a WorldTeach employee. Carana Silvestri. From Boise, Idaho.

The questions slowed. The blond man gave her a meaningful look. "Spring break of that year," he said. "You had a week off from your teaching assignments. You left Prague with Ms. Silvestri. What happened then?"

She had answered these questions before, in the days after her return from Marchev when a parade of people in suits had drifted through her room in the VA hospital. "We took the train to Beztan. We had eight days off and we just wanted to go exploring. We had talked about doing some hiking in the Kar-Paval mountains, but then Carana met a guy on the train and changed her mind - he was heading south for the beaches at Chiritil and she wanted us to go with him. I still wanted to see the mountains. We came into Vuko at around noon and that's where we split up. I got off, but she stayed on the train. We were supposed to meet up in Prague the next weekend when our break was over."

She thought of the dark forest along the tracks on the outskirts of Vuko where she'd disembarked. The trees had frightened her that night but had sheltered her too, massing around her while she crouched in the moist fallen leaves with her hands over her ears, a lost shadow, terrified and small, and the eyeless moon too high to save her.

"What happened next?"

She gripped her hands together. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "It was scary. I don't like to think about it."

"Go slow."

She had walked through the city, she told them, and tried to ask directions into the mountains. The locals had pointed toward the looming peaks that lay east. She had set off with a pack on her back and a sleeping bag slung below it. She was clambering up and up, not sure where she was going, when below her she heard the first explosions. "I didn't know what it was. I thought maybe an accident in a factory. But I heard it again and again, boom, and I could see smoke below me through the trees. I didn't know what to do but I wanted to get away, so I kept climbing. At night I slept and in the day I climbed. Finally I came to a village where people spoke Karth. They were excited that I spoke it too. I explained that my parents were from the mountains, so they gave me a place to stay for the night. The next day we saw a line of Beztani soldiers advancing up the mountain road. My hosts said there was no safe route out. So I lived with a Nevsanek family after that; they took me in and treated me like a daughter. There was fighting every day on the lower slopes; all the roads were guarded and I couldn't leave."

The men gave her sympathetic looks. They asked how she'd come to Marchev. Captured, she told them, while collecting water. Soldiers had chased her and thrown into a truck, and when they threw her out she landed in the mud and they told her she was a prisoner. She had been speaking Karthic for so long it hadn't occurred to her to speak English at first; later she was afraid that if they learned she was American they might kill her to keep her quiet. She was held in the camp from early spring until mid-summer when the UN people came. "I didn't know how much time had passed. A nurse with the UN said it was August 8. So I had been there about five months." It sounded like nothing as she said the words. Did these men know that five months could last forever?

"Have you been in touch with anyone you knew in Beztan? Jaro Kozlan, or any of the Karth villagers?"

"Not since I left. I haven't spoken to any of them or heard from them. I wouldn't know how to get in touch if I wanted to. There are no land lines in the village, and cell phones don't work up there."

"All right." The two men looked at each other. "Thank you for your time," said the blond.

When she got out to the lobby, Jamie was still there. He sprang up as soon as he saw her. "How did it go?"

"I don't know. It was quick." He was looking at her a little too hard, and she knew what he was thinking. Angrily she said, "I didn't lie."

"Okay. Good."

He took her other places after that. They went to a store where she opened an account that would let her buy on credit against her first paycheck. It had everything she could imagine wanting: bread, eggs, towels, notebooks, a rack of casual clothes and sportswear. He pointed out the dining hall, the library, the gym, and the language center where she would start work as soon as her visitor's pass came through. "That should take just a day or two. Until then, you're pretty free. But you've got an appointment tomorrow morning." There was something in the way he said it. "It's with a man named Paul Cabrese. He's a sort of counselor."

A whirling lightness came into her head and she stopped, blocking the path. Two young women striding along in fatigues stopped short and stepped around her. "What sort of counselor?"

"He meets with employees and new arrivals; he helps people settle in. It's a routine thing. I'll show you the building - it's that one, number eighty-six, across from Wills. You'll have to be there at nine tomorrow. I'll be at my office so you'll have to find your way on your own. There's a map, I think, in your visitor's packet. "

He walked her back to number 42. After he left she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her shaking hands.

..................... 

Angel walked at Jamie's side. They had come halfway up the gentle slope and now the rim of the woods lay a little ways ahead, and past that she could see hills heaped upon rising hills, receding into undulating lines of blue and indigo with pale sky beyond. The base, the place called Theta that three days ago she had never heard of, was behind her, and when she turned she could see the whole shallow bowl of it: orderly squares of green crossed by footpaths and framed by buildings of functional brick. It was a bald patch shaved into the woods that climbed around it in every direction. She had already seen those woods from their underside, during the drive from Washington after they left the highway and tunneled under the trees for the last half hour. Jamie took the dips and turns one-handed, and she could see nothing up ahead because the trees made walls on both sides and locked their arms overhead. She was half-carsick and wanted to beat her hands against the windows and scream to be let out.

"The base is fenced in, but you have to hike two miles into the trees before you'll find that fence. There's a network of trails that goes all the way around. Just, if you come out here, make sure you keep your badge with you and stay on the paths. Copperheads mostly hide under the rocks." He was taking short, slow steps to match her pace. It was embarrassing. She tried to move faster, but her hip hurt and her head was throbbing. She had felt sick the day before, and today if anything she was worse. He was thinking she was frail and needy. He was probably right, but she hated him seeing her this way.

She'd known what Theta would be like. Concrete barracks would rear like fungal growths from an expanse of rutted mud. There would be a grinding metal gate, soldiers on guard, trucks roaring back and forth throughout the night, and a double chain-link fence to pen her in. It was run by the Americans, so there would be no random gunshots in the day or night, no blunt shovels gouging pits in the mud which would later be filled. There would be no screaming. There would be no buckets of grey water with clotted floating rags and a sharp metal handle that sliced her palm; she would not have to scrub down the cracked walls of the Happy Rooms and drag the bucket to the back door of the kitchen and push it over so that the water, red now, could run out across the concrete slab. Theta would not be bad. She'd told herself this repeatedly as the road slipped backward under the wheels of Jamie's car. When they drew to a stop next to a low building, in front of a metal arm that blocked the road, Jamie waved his badge at a trio of men in uniform and said, "One visitor. Angel Morov; she's on your list," and the arm had swung up and she'd gotten her first look at the place and been shocked. Theta looked nothing like Marchev. It looked like Boston College.

She was still staring back at the base below her, trying to catch her breath. "I'm sorry," Jamie said. "You're tired, aren't you? I shouldn't be dragging you around like this. It's just, I thought you might like the quiet. I'm from West Virginia, so this feels like home to me. You head north or south and the foothills go on for hundreds of miles. West, they rise into the blue ridge highlands. I guess it's nothing like what you were used to in the Kar-Paval though. Those are some rugged mountains."

In the Kar-Paval, at Nevsanek's elevation and above, the soil was poor and crooked trees clung to the slopes. On the lower flanks forest alternated with grassy plains, good for grazing. Even there the trees were widely spaced with only low shrubs and moss at their feet. Virginia's lush excess was foreign to her. But Jamie was right. If her head weren't aching, if she weren't seeing spots dancing in and out of hte periphery of her vision, she would like the enfolding quiet that emanated from the lush green wall ahead. She could crawl inside and it would cradle her, and no one would see.

He took her other places after that: the dining hall, then the language center where she would start work as soon as her visitor's pass came through. "That should take just a day or two. Until then, you're pretty free. But you've got an appointment tomorrow morning." There was something in the way he said it. He was trying to tell her something. "It's with a man named Paul Cabrese. He's a sort of counselor."


	11. train doors closing

"Do you know why you're here?"

Cabrese looked over the woman Angel Moro. After reading her history in the files James Callahan had sent over, he was taken aback by her appearance. She was an almost offensive presence in his office: slovenly, hostile, and frightened. She looked more like a subject at the Block than a typical employee at Theta or the company. She was holding her hands tightly together in her lap.

He let the question hang and waited her out. At last she said, "Standard procedure, I guess."

"Pretty much. New employees get run through security check. Your name came up with an asterisk."

Again she didn't answer.

"I already know something about you, if that makes it easier. I have your old records. James Callahan collected everything he could on you four years ago, when he was working to get you repatriated from Beztan. Your birth certificate, college transcript, your application to the teaching institute in Prague. Also I've seen your hospital records." He knew how she was going to take the information, and sure enough, she bared her teeth. Literally: her lips drew back for an instant, top and bottom, like those of any cornered primate showing aggression. After a moment he prompted her. "Is there anything else you want me to know?"

She shrugged, feigning indifference. He could see her flipping through a list of possible retorts. In the end she went with, "All that stuff was a long time ago."

"Not an easy time, I think."

She had been trying to stare him down, but now the stare faltered and she shifted her gaze to a spot on the wall. She swallowed and lifted her chin a few notches. "Made for good reading, I hope," she spat. "Good entertainment. Photos in there, too, am I right?" He didn't answer. The facade cracked immediately, as she colored deeper and looked down. She was thinking about the hospital files and what they might include. The corner of her mouth gave a dangerous jerk. There was a nervous vibration to her body. She began jigging her foot.

"The records were pretty slim, to tell the truth. St. Luke's sent fifty pages, but all of it was one-line notes. 'Remains uncooperative. Declines to participate.' "

"Yeah, well. Nothing's changed."

"I'm actually not so interested in anyone's past. You had a hard time but you moved on - the best thing you could have done. But coming here and teaching Karthic. It might bring back bad memories."

"No. I don't have any memories."

"Okay; that's easy then. You can just come by twice a week, to make sure it stays that way."

"That's not necessary. Really. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

Ice asked for warmth, but a wall needed a hammer. He changed tone. "Actually, yes. It's necessary. It's going to be in your contract. Twice a week. As a condition of employment."

He watched the succession of emotions flash across her face like neon signs. She went - predictably enough - with outrage. "Is that even legal? You're kidding me."

"It's legal. It's common here. It's why I have a job. It's the reason for this office." He locked her eyes. "You understand you're in a whole new world. It's a government installation, there's a military culture here, there's weapons, there's guards, there's a focus on security. And your employer, who is also my employer, has a certain way of doing things. I'll be honest - I want to get to know you and I want you to keep the job. TI can tell you the good news: you passed your security intake, which means they'll bring you your employment contract later today. Please sign. I promise I'm not so terrible."

He waited. She would cut her losses here and make the best of her defeat. "Whatever." 

He'd like to win at least a little goodwill, to get things off to a better start. "I'm going to guess you're having a hard time sleeping. I could give you something for that. Maybe something to help your nerves, too, just for the next couple days." He unlocked his bottom drawer and shook six pills into an envelope. "Take one now. I'll get you some water."

She took the envelope but held it skeptically at arm's length. "I can't. From here, I'm going to look around the language lab where I'll be working. I can't be doped up."

"Take one now, then one every eight hours. It won't fix everything but it will help." Clearly she hated the thought of accepting anything from him, but the promise in those pills was more than she could resist. She shrugged and swallowed one dry, sticking the envelope in her pocket.

"Thanks for coming," he said, holding the door for her. "I'll see you in a few days."

She stomped out gracelessly. He watched her go with misgivings. With curiosity.

.

A few hours later, he crossed the campus and made his way to D building. He had been looking forward to this: seeing Callahan again, whom he hadn't crossed paths with since their first and only encounter years before. He'd spent the morning looking over Callahan's files, and gradually his memories of the man rose into sharp relief. Callahan was a big bluff guy, the kind people probably called "a man's man." However, he'd been a bloody mess when Cabrese had met him the first time. It would be interesting to find out what he'd made of himself.

Callahan was already in the viewing room with one of the film techs, the lights off and grainy images flickering on the screen in front of him. He paused the film and stood up. "Hi. Good to see you again." They shook, and Callahan said, "I've got the video from the shooting rigged up. I've been going over it already." He was all business; a company man through and through. If he had emotions; if he had anything on his mind besides the work in front of them, he hid it well.

They reviewed the footage in slow motion. "Azor looks like himself," Callahan said. "Nothing unusual. He's flirting with that hotel girl, see it? If anything's wrong, he hasn't noticed it yet. Here, this bodyguard is Chogav. He crouches down at just the wrong time. That's the shooter coming into the frame. Something's wrong with Chogav; he never should have gotten down like that. This other man off to the left, that's Damiric - he's another of Mirtallev's people but he's more of a crowd-control man. His main job was to run interference and keep people away from Azor when he wanted to be left alone."

Callahan looked away from the screen just before the shot was fired and did not look up for a couple seconds, while the victim clutched his throat and fell. Then he picked up his commentary as if nothing had interrupted it.

"Chogav was the guard Azor depended on - he was an amazing guy; Beztan's answer to the Terminator. But even when he sees the shooter coming, he doesn't get a shot off until after Azor goes down. It's all wrong. So what I'd wonder is, was he bribed? Or blackmailed? Or did he want Mirtallev dead for some reason of his own? Like maybe Mirtallev had slept with his wife, which, not a smart way to treat your bodyguard, but with Azor, not completely out of the range of possibilities." He smiled a little, but a look of sadness followed swiftly and he changed the subject. "So, the assassin. When does he arrive at the Block?"

"Tomorrow. But he's still recovering from the gunshot wound so I'll give him some time before I start on him. I have a trainee who's going to be involved: Miranda Lasalle. I'll need to prep her as well, before I send her into the lion's den for the first time. But the big hurdle is going to be the language barrier. I get the feeling it will take a while to enlist the Moro woman's help."

Callahan looked as if he wanted to say something, but at that moment his phone rang. "Yes. Today? Well, no, but I had plans. All right. Of course." He stared at the phone after he hung up, then put it back in his pocket.

Cabrese said, " 'Four o'clock meeting in building 86. Clear your evening schedule. Sorry for the late notice.' " Callahan stared at him; he shrugged apologetically. "The meeting; it's with me. My office is room 202, in case they didn't tell you."

Callahan was a professional. For a long moment he remained silent, his face betraying no disturbance. Then he said, "I'm not due for a CDD. Not for another two months. And I've been seeing Johanssen."

"Well, as you know, the company works in mysterious ways." He glanced at his watch. "We've got an hour until then, so let's call off the film review for now. We can get together here later, tomorrow if you like, to go into more detail. For right now, I imagine you'll want some time to prepare yourself before four o'clock."


	12. CDD

Callahan knocked at his door at the appointed hour. He looked more guarded than earlier, but that was only to be expected. "Been a while," he said evenly, folding himself onto the sofa.

"A while since you've been in that chair. Your EDD, three and a half years ago, mid-November. You were a few weeks back from Beztan."

"That's right. Long time ago."

"And you've been with Johanssen since you moved to Media. What do you think of him?"

"You want the diplomat's answer or the honest one?"

"Which do you want to give me?"

"He's a smart man. No sense of humor. But at least he doesn't usually make me want to put a bullet through his forehead, which is pretty much where I set the bar for these things."

"Excellent." He smiled. "Shall we get started?"

"You gonna wire me up?" Callahan was already reaching for his top shirt button.

"I usually don't bother. But the equipment's in the back if you want it that way. Your choice."

A shrug. It was a shade too elaborate to be honest; unless, of course Mr. Callahan had been raised in France. Cabrese chided himself for skimming the details of his subject's background. He was getting sloppy. Too sure of himself, was the problem. Smug.

"Johanssen always wires me," Callahan said. "That's the only reason I asked. I don't care either way."

"Ah, well. Johannsen doesn't have my infallible intuition." He smiled. "So: begin CDD. Let's start by going back a few years. You were just back from Beztan. War just over, the Comirat province got their independence; treaty signed; peace at last. You'd done a good job over there. But you were troubled by what you'd seen at that detention camp. What was it called?"

"Marchev."

"Marchev. Feelings of guilt. Sense of complicity in not stopping the Beztan war crimes. The grayer shades of being an American hero. That still a problem for you?"

"Nope."

Cabrese waited. The clock ticked ostentatiously. Finally Callahan sighed. "Not gonna pass me on that one, are you?" Cabrese smiled but said nothing. Tick. Tock. Tick. Callahan fidgeted. "Okay," he said. "The truth, then."

He fell silent again, but Cabrese could see him preparing himself, shedding the social demeanor he'd worn into the room. Readying his mind for the unavoidable business ahead of him. After seventeen years at the company, Callahan would know that cooperation was not only the quickest route out of a debriefing, but the least embarrassing. Better to give it up willingly and maintain some control, then take a brutal pounding and get turned inside out for hours, so you ended up a shaking mess with all dignity stripped away. "Take your time," he said kindly. "Tell me when you're ready."

A faint sheen of sweat had appeared on Callahan's skin. It was unusual for a veteran to have this much trouble getting started. But finally he rubbed his hands over his face and said. "All right. I just, uh. I have a chance at getting back in. Getting out of Media Analysis. A field which is - you may not believe this - actually way, way too exciting for me. And I don't want to mess up my chances by saying the wrong thing here."

Ah. "Understood. I know about your opportunity. But of course you know that holding back will give you a less favorable review. Noncooperation being, next to mental instability, about the worst thing I can say about you."

"Of course." Callahan drew a breath. He launched into it. "Your question: do I still think about Marchev? Answer is yes. The mass graves, the things I saw there. Those men, how they looked when we came into the camp. The women. Knowing that maybe I could have stopped it."

"But that wouldn't have been your first time feeling responsible for people dying."

"No. It was just a matter of scale. There had been individual deaths before, but only two, and both those people knew the risks they were taking. Both of them were selling secrets for money. But Marchev was a whole different thing. I'd seen the briefings; I'd heard the rumors; I'd known all along. But when I saw the bodies-- And of course, Mirtallev was behind it, or at least was hip-deep in it. He and I had been good friends even though I'd known for a long time what he was capable of." It was old ground and he covered it easily. "But then, you know, after a while I made peace with it. That's the job. I do good work. I do what I'm told. So I learned to live with it."

"Ah. You just follow orders. That's refreshingly Nazi of you."

Callahan thought a moment. Then he said, "Okay, wait. You know it's more than that."

"Tell me." Every employee constructed his own personal set of excuses to shield himself, so he could keep thinking of himself as a good person. The ones who couldn't do that were the ones that cracked - some toward the wilder extremes of escapism, some toward depression, numbing agents and suicide. Others grabbed hold of some other ideology that promised atonement and generally led to treason. Less dramatically, but not as often, an employee took the route of Callahan's wife. That was maybe the hardest road for a malcontent, but Cabrese found it the most admirable.

"All right." He concentrated." It's like this. I followed orders at Beztan, just like everywhere before, because I believe in a strong America. If we stay strong, it's good for the world. Equality, democracy, capitalism, rule of law, freedom of political speech and protection for the little guys. Light of freedom shining across the planet for all those huddled masses. Corny, okay, but I'm a true believer. I look out across the world, knowing what I know, and I see everyone else out there trying to get an edge. They play the game, so we have to play the game. And the game is played dirty. If it's me playing, then it doesn't have to be other people - innocent people, regular guys who can live their whole lives without ever knowing what goes into keeping this ship afloat. And if it's me, it doesn't have to be my wife, who, as you know, doesn't have the stomach for it. So I do my job. America stays on top. And if there's a little blood, my duty is to wash it off and, you know, not whine about it. Just get it done."

"And if you had to do it again? Another time, another Marchev, somewhere else in the world?"

"Well, I won't lie." He was speaking from the gut; he looked pained but he believed what he was saying. "I hope I never have to. But I've done a lot of things, through the years - for the job, for the country - things that I wouldn't do for any other fucking reason in the world. I've proved to myself that I can do those things. I'm not soulless enough to be fine with it, but I've seen the worst. And I still believe in what we do. I want to keep doing it."

"All right. I'll take that."

"Good. Because it's the truth. What's next?"

Cabrese smiled. "You'll have seen this one coming: How's your wife?"

That produced a wry grimace. "Yeah, I gotta tell Theresa how goddamn popular she still is. Everyone's always asking me about her."

"You resent that?"

"That one's easy. Yes, I do resent it. I resent having my loyalty doubted because of what my wife - who, God knows, I cannot control - chose to do in a moment of ideological passion four years ago." 

"Remind me why you got moved out of Ambassadorial."

Callahan shot him a sullen look before sighing and giving in. "I told Theresa I'd known about the war crimes. That the company had instructed me not to speak to Azor for fear of souring our relationship. That our military support to Beztan went on, in spite of my reports that much of our goods were being funnelled to paramilitary gangs responsible for the worst offenses against the Comitek and Karth minorities. I was bothered by it, all right? So I told my wife. But Theresa, when I told her-- She went to Quentin that same day, said she wanted out. So. She was red-tagged. I was blamed. Poor judgment, you people said. NTK violation. And then." He chuckled bitterly. "And then the powers that be, in their wisdom, decided I should also be blamed for staying married to the infamous red-tagged harlot. Hester Prynne. Well, I'm not the one who fucking pinned that letter on her - you people did that yourselves."

"Defiant," remarked Cabrese. "So you still don't you think those concerns were valid?"

"Understandable? Yes. Valid? Hell fucking no." Callahan's voice was getting progressively louder and he gripped the arms of the chair. "Listen to me: It's been four fucking years I've been stuck in M.A. I did _nothing_ wrong; she had clearance; she was my wife for God's sake; I had _no_ reason to believe--"

"You can stop now." 

There was a vast difference between honesty and indignant self-justification. The latter was counterproductive.

Callahan stopped hard, as if a leash had yanked him back. He cast his eyes skyward. Clearly he was cursing himself.

Cabrese redirected. "Ideological passion, you said. Is that how you see it? She quit in a moment of passion?"

"Well. That's Theresa." He was still wound up. "That's women for you."

"From her file, I wouldn't have guessed she was the type who'd let emotions guide her. She sounds more like a planner. Meticulous."

Callahan laughed and relaxed a little. "You don't know her. She'll fool you. A lady of depth and mystery." It was a surprise that he spoke so warmly of the woman who'd wrecked his career. "She's a planner, but she's a lot of things. She's more than that."

"How about forgiving - is she that?"

"No. Hell, no. Well -- maybe that's unfair. Forgiving, maybe. But forgetting? That'll be the far side of never."

"Then she won't be happy if you end up going back into the ambassadorial sector."

"We talked about it. She says it's up to me." But he looked down.

"You find yourself wondering if she means it."

"Trying not to think about it until I have to."

"If you go back, are you going to be able to keep secrets from her, this time around?"

"Don't you think I've kept a million secrets from her? Seventeen years since I was recruited."

"You ever think about divorcing her?"

Callahan flinched. But it was more than a flinch, it was a flash of bared teeth, same as the Moro woman had shown when he mentioned her stay at the psych hospital: Yet it was only the obvious question. "What is that, now?" Callahan snapped. "Your professional recommendation? Is the company meddling with my family now?"

"Defensive," said Cabrese. "Take a moment."

Callahan blinked and sat back. "Right," he muttered.

Debriefers loved veterans. Someone like Callahan had been around the block enough to develop his own unique problems, rather than the prosaic ones that every first-year trainee had to be guided through: fear of failure, of discovery, and so on. Better yet, Callahan knew what a CDD required. He was long past the futile show of resistance that young employees clung to. Callahan would probably be done in under an hour - whereas a first-year trainee took an average of twelve hours for the same process. A debriefer had to hang in for as long as long as it took, patiently rejecting every unacceptable response - lies, evasions, argument, anger, humor, stubborn silence, attempted elopement, tears, threats, pleas, violence. First-years were told this plainly and repeatedly. "A CDD is a maze and you're the rat. The only way out is the path of candor. Everything else gets you no closer to the exit. Remember that the whole time we stay here, the debriefer is getting paid. And you're just continuing to prove you're too chickenshit to tell the truth."

Callahan had gotten himself under control. He looked intent and ready, a diver on the ten-meter platform. "All right," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I asked whether you thought about divorcing Theresa. We're picking up from there. That wasn't a recommendation, just a fair question. You two, you met in foreign service training. You were in roughly the same line of work; you shared certain beliefs. An average man would now be thinking, she's broken the deal. Got herself red-tagged, become a millstone to your career. You resent her for it; you're growing apart. You still believe in honor and country, but she doesn't. You must be asking yourself, why not cut her loose?"

"Oh, God," Callahan muttered. "True, true, and undecided." He closed his eyes. "But, I don't think that's the company's business."

"I'll leave the details off the record," said Callahan quietly. "You still have to answer."

"All right. You want to know." He swallowed, making a choking sound. "I thought about it. Sure. A lot, four years ago. Sometimes I still do." He clenched his fists, then opened them hard so the tendons stood out on the backs of his hands. "I've thought about leaving her. It would improve my chances with the company about a thousand percent; I know that. But I don't want to do it."

Vanity and self-delusion were the cause of most struggles in this room. But the struggle of a man at odds with himself - that was rarer and deserved respect. "Okay. But you're going to have to explain that."

Callahan raised himself up. "How about this?" he said wearily. "I love my wife. I love my country. I loved the ambassadorial sector. And I'm just enough of a selfish, ambitious bastard to think I can have all three of those things. Like I used to."

 _Like I used to._ A familiar stumbling block. "Hmm."

"Did I pass?" Callahan demanded. "I better pass on that one, because, I'm telling you, I got nothing else. I can't explain it any better. I want to let her go. Get back on the job. But I can't." Cabrese waited. "Look, she and I both know that I can't talk shop with her. Ever, for the rest of my life. All that we had, seventeen years of it, the best part of us - it's over. We both get it. I'm not a goddamn traitor and neither is she, and neither of us tells secrets. You people can come bug our bedroom if you want - assuming you aren't doing that already. I warn you, though: we've been married more than twenty years; you're not gonna hear anything too entertaining."

It was enough; it was an honest outburst, and Cabrese laughed. The man deserved a reward. "Yes. You pass on that. And the company has couples therapists if you want a referral. Sex therapists, too."

Callahan settled back onto the sofa, weak but grinning with relief. "Fuck you. Next question."

"Now we come to the interrogation you've been assigned to. You've never helped on one, never seen one. True?"

"Ah. That would be, actually - false." Cabrese hid his surprise as he waited. "In Sokhrina. Mirtallev showed off his dungeon to me one time." He shifted uncomfortably. "He sprung it on me. Told me we were going to an underground boxing match. So, we're downtown, he takes me into a big solid-looking building, it's unmarked; we go through three security checks, then boom. Turns out he's taken me to the GC. The _gosurnyesk chudrak_ \- means federal internment facility." Callahan chewed the inside of cheek. "He kept me there for a couple hours. Had me watch a prisoner getting worked over. A Karth, actually."

"You don't look like you enjoyed it."

"Can't say I did."

"Tell me what you saw there."

"Bunch of goons beating a man up." He shrugged, or tried to. "Man was doing a little yelling. It was nothing. Not too bad."

Cabrese waited. Callahan suffered. Finally Cabrese said, "You know, we can sit here a long time. I've done twenty-three hours at a stretch."

Callahan looked at him. "Yeah, well. It was pretty bad." He laughed shakily. "Pretty fucking bad."

"You should have told someone that. Years ago."

"Can't tell you people all my secrets, doctor. Gotta remind you that you aren't as all-seeing as you'd like to believe."

He was right, of course. Every subject got some things past a debriefer's radar. Lies of omission were the most common and hardest to detect. Some testers favored wiring their subjects; Cabrese hated it. His statistics were as good as anyone's, and that's all the company cared about. Poor Johanssen, on the other hand, had just lost a subject to suicide - worse, she had left a note explaining that for over a year she'd been blackmailed by one of her sources. Waking up to news like that was every debriefer's nightmare. It was Johanssen's second major screw-up in six years. The company had him on probation.

"So. We've established that you're not a big fan of torture, which is good, because your government doesn't like to keep psychopaths on the payroll. You have any nightmares afterward?"

"For a while I did. Not anymore."

"How do you see your role in the interrogation of the Karth boy?"

"Is he a boy?"

"Seventeen."

"Oh, for Chrissake. Just... Just tell me that we're not gonna rip his toenails out with pliers, because, you know, I really didn't enjoy that part. Or the electrodes. Testicles. Eyeballs. I could have done without pretty much all of it, come to think of it."

"Are you afraid of being tortured, Jamie?"

That produced a flat stare; brick wall coming down hard. "I passed my coursework during training. I passed all my clinicals. I've passed the refreshers twice a year like everybody else."

"Not what I asked."

Callahan closed his eyes, opened them. "What were we talking about?"

"You, strapped to a gurney, helpless, with a knife going into your eye socket. Electrodes duct-taped to your genitals, big ugly guy throwing the switch, sending high-voltage agony into your dick and up your asshole."

"Oh, yeah, that. Okay. So. Torture." He was showing psychomotor signs, all of them, and he knew it, knew Cabrese saw it, knew it was a lost cause. He threw his hands up. "Yeah, you got me. I'm afraid of it. After what I saw. Call me crazy." He shook his head. "Ah, fuck. I just blew it. Didn't I."

"You didn't blow anything. But if you do get back in the game, I'll have to put in my recommendations. And I'll be recommending remediation. Do you know what that entails?"

"I can guess."

"Desensitization is a proven method. I've seen it work hundreds of times. Even on long-term victims."

"Really, and does it work on eyeballs? I guess it must. Because, if the company puts my eyes out, I'll have nothing left to worry about." He rubbed his chin. " Jesus."

"You could stay in M.A., you know. It's a good job. Steady. And someone has to do it."

"Oh, hey. Now you're talking true torture." After a moment he said, "I thought we were talking about Mirtallev's assassin. Not about my humiliating psychological weaknesses."

Cabrese moved on. Any idiot could pound a man's weak points until he turned into a useless heap of jelly. The interrogator's art lay in setting the stage, applying just the right combination of pressure and escape hatches that the subject was rendered cooperative. He had been trying to get this point across to his current trainee, LaSalle for months. She understood the concept but had the subtlety of a battering ram. "I can promise you I won't be torturing the boy. Sleep deprivation and environmental manipulation, yes. But mostly what you'll see is me running a game on him, which as we both know is what I do best. Do you think you'll be up for it?" Callahan nodded. He was looking steadier. "The Block isn't pleasant - not for the prisoners and not for the interviewers. If we liked it, we'd be monsters. And now, changing the subject: Your knowledge of Mirtallev, his bodyguard, your insight into the security arrangements - that's all going to be a great asset to me."

"And so now you're flattering me. Kissing my assets. You just want to get my mind off this subject of eyeballs."

"I do. Is it working?"

"It's goddamn bush league, is what it is, doc. You're insulting my intelligence."

Cabrese smiled. "Getting close to the end. You tired yet?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Next topic: your old friend Azor Mirtallev. Dead. What do you think of that?"

"What do I think of it." He blew out his breath. "I think if anyone deserved it, he did. And, uh, I think the world is a smaller, way more boring place with him not in it."

"Go on."

Callahan swallowed. "I didn't believe it when I heard. I mean, you never believe those things on the first day; it has to sink in, you know?" Cabrese nodded. "But even later. Mirtallev, he was... larger than life. So yeah. It hit me pretty hard. Guy was a bastard but, you know. He was my friend."

"So. Tell me about him."

Callahan stared into the distance, memories of a fallen Camelot shining before him. "You don't really want to know. Do you?"

"I want to know about you. So yes, I want to know about him."

Callahan groaned. "Oh Christ. Where to start. Azor Mirtallev." He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Azor Mirtallev. He was a fucking lunatic. Loyal, though. Shirt off his back. Could tell a joke better than anyone, keep you laughing all night. Center of attention. Loved it when the joke was on him. He made everything funny. Listen: this one time we were out at a casino, one of the ones his people owned. And he went off to talk up a girl. Came back staggering, doubled over, hands cupped over his balls. I jumped up. "Azor! Azor, what the fuck?" "She shot me, brother! Took them both off, one shot. Chogav! Jamie! Karel!" Then he crumpled up at my feet, rolled onto his back. Wearing a suit, naturally, that cost half a million rachki. Everyone in the place was staring, shouting - _Mirtallev's been shot!_ Poor Chogav roaring, "Call emergency! Lock the doors! Lock the doors and I find this girl!" Callahan laughed at the memory and shook his head. But the hilarity went out of him quickly. "Not so funny now."

Cabrese was silent. After a while Callahan went on. "He was like a king. Made everybody feel like a king. Made me feel alive. Does that sound weird?" He looked to Cabrese, who shook his head. "Azor was a guy who made every girl feel like a supermodel, even the ugly ones. The men in the cigarette kiosks loved him; everyone loved him. Except, of course, for the millions who wanted him dead." He looked at Cabrese. "I've been everywhere, you know? I've met a lot of charming monsters; most monsters have a charming face they trot out for special company. But he was different. He was a good man who got into a bad line of work. He needed a fast life, I think, couldn't stay away from it. So he went where the excitement was."

"Why did he take you to his dungeon, that time? Was it a threat against you? A test?"

"No. God no. He wasn't like that. He knew it was a terrible place. But-- it meant something to him." He looked up. "He asked me afterward, what I thought of it. He didn't have to ask; he could see I was about to vomit. I told him he shouldn't have brought me. And he-- he apologized. He meant it, too. He was sorry he'd made me watch, but he hadn't done it by accident, either. I mean, he knew from the start that I would hate it. He said, 'But I had to show you. So that now you can go home and think. And tomorrow you will please just tell me: are we still friends?'" Callahan looked around, then shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. He was crazy. He was terrible. I miss him."

"And when the next day came, what did you tell him? Still friends?"

Callahan nodded slowly. "Better than ever." He twisted away suddenly and put his hands up to shield his eyes. "Ah, fuck." Cabrese waited. Callahan stayed like that for a minute, face hidden in shadow. Then he swung back to face forward. "We gotta be just about done, doctor."

Cabrese shook his head. "Last topic. What do you think it will be?"

He waited. Callahan waited. Cabrese gave him ten minutes, which was enough to have most subjects desperate to break out of the hole they'd dug themselves. Then he said, "This is where I remind you that your superiors will soon be reading my impression of, among other things, your willingness to cooperate with challenging parts of the assessment."

"Right." He rubbed his jaw. He looked tired. "Listen, I'm not trying to be uncooperative. I just don't want to play guessing games. You want to start, you can start."

"Okay. Four years ago. You got in over your head with a girl. Angel Moro. Agree or disagree?"

"Neither. I have a question before we go any further down this road."

"Shoot."

"Four years ago, you and I met. I told you some things. But those things remain confidential. That was an EDD, and the rule is, problems volunteered by an employee during an EDD stay off the record forever. I came forward; I did the right thing. Today, this is a CDD - this is for my file - but when it comes to Angel, you still can't touch me. No matter what I say, don't say, or refuse to say about her - you can't put any of that in my assessment. You can't."

"You want a review of the confidentiality rules governing employee-driven debriefings."

Callahan nodded. "Damn straight."

"All right." He leaned forward. "You're pretty much right. Here's the background: The company, not being stupid, knows that employees are human. You're also special. Each of you has skills and experience that makes you irreplaceable. So when you have problems, they want you to ask for help and not go off the rails. Hence, the employee-driven debriefing. When you ask for an EDD, you're awarded permanent confidentiality on whatever issue you raise. Other debriefers can see EDD records, but in your official file, the bosses only see the date of the request, the date of the EDD, and the name of the debriefer. And as you correctly stated, confidentiality applies even if the topic is raised during a company-driven debriefing like this one. I have to add, and this should go without saying, that the rule of confidentiality is waived when the debriefer has gray-level concerns - that is, when we're talking about infractions that require suspension or termination. So far so good. You are familiar with these rules."

"Yes. Confidentiality forever. That's what I'm saying."

"But now, listen carefully, because here's the other side of the coin: When I send my report to the boss later today, it will include an assessment of your entire performance, start to finish, no topics excluded. So while I won't mention your past problems with Angel, I might find myself reporting, for example, that I found you secretive. Or uncooperative. Or that, concerning an unnamed topic, you proved emotionally unable to withstand the rigors of strenuous questioning."

He waited for this to sink in. Callahan stared. He started to say something, then he stopped, then he went back mentally over Cabrese's words. "Wait," he said. "Run that by me again." Cabrese did.

Callahan worked it through. It was possible to see him going over the words, looking for a loophole. Finally he shook his head in a kind of blind amazement. "So," he said. "Let me understand. Because I asked for an EDD four years ago, I put myself on the hook. You can question me about her. I have to answer. I have to satisfy you that I'm candid and stable and all that other crap, or you'll hang me out on my CDD. You'll fucking hang me out."

Cabrese felt sympathy. "Yes. That is how it works."

"But I came to you! I didn't have to tell you anything. If I had known--" He made an inarticulate sound. "You people. I can't believe you."

"Try to see it from--"

"No! I believed what I'd been told. 'The company has your best interests at heart, ask for an EDD, you'll get confidentiality;' what a fucking load of-- And you, when I walked in four years ago, you didn't warn me. And like an idiot, I walked right into it. I trusted you."

"It's not a trap. It's a protection, for the company as well as you. This way, when an employee has a problem, his debriefer can ensure his ongoing well-being. As well as making sure it never crosses into gray-level behavior."

Callahan nodded. "Right. You are a complete bastard."

"I have a job to do, Jamie. Like you."

Callahan's eyes were still roving, looking for something to latch on to. "So Johanssen knows? But he's never mentioned her to me; not in four years."

"He saw it as a personal matter, unlikely to affect your work in M.A. Now she's at Theta. Things are different."

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." He pounded his fists into his thighs. "I thought I was safe! You know? Because of the EDD rules. I thought you couldn't touch me."

"I understand. But it is what it is. And here is my question for you now. Did I help you four years ago? You were in very deep. You asked for an EDD and we talked. I helped you look at the problem from different angles. We talked about the choices before you. I think in the end I helped you. But I look at you now, and I think you're in trouble again. So. Let's get started."

Callahan struggled for a long time. Finally his shoulders slumped. "Okay." He still looked bewildered. "Do it. Just, do it. Like I have a choice? I want to keep my job. I'll answer."

"We are starting where we left off. Four years ago, you were in over your head with a young woman. Angel Moro. Agree or disagree?"

"Oh well, 'over my head.' I don't know if I'd go that far."

"You know, of course, that there's a recording of the EDD. For my use only. I pulled it out this morning, put it in the player. Maybe we can turn it on. Revisit your feelings at the time. Get a clearer memory." He nodded toward the equipment in the corner. Callahan recoiled. There was a pause.

"No," he mumbled at last. "Not necessary."

"Okay then. I'll go on. Four years ago. Over your head. You were just back from Beztan, from Marchev. You talked to Theresa; you lost your clearance; had to take a lateral transfer into Media. Ms. Moro was meanwhile recovering at the Roanoke V.A., where you had pulled strings to get her a bed. You were driving there every evening after work, and lying to Theresa about it. And then." He gestured. "Your turn."

"Well," said Callahan. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his chair. "And then, her suicide attempt at the VA. And then, they sent her to, you know, to a different place."

"That place being a psychiatric hospital."

"Yeah. There."

"And that's when, to your everlasting credit, you requested an EDD. Do you have anything you want to add before we go on?"

Callahan, beaten, shook his head.

"She was taken to St. Luke's as an involuntary hold. You came to me the day they transferred her. I advised you to stop seeing her immediately. Did you listen to me?"

Callahan shifted. "I listened to you. About a lot of things." Cabrese waited that one out. He was waiting a while. Finally Callahan said, "One time, all right? One time. To say goodbye. To say good luck. That I'd be thinking about her. And to tell her that, you know, that everything would turn out okay."

"And. How did that go?"

"Oh. Really good. Amazing." He laughed. "Worse than you would believe." It took him a while to come out with it. "She saw me, started screaming. Blaming me for saving her. 'You should have left me there to die;' stuff like that. Yeah. So anyway, nurses came running; they shooed me out of the room. And so I left. Got hell outa Dodge." He looked up. "I know. You warned me it was going to end badly. You were right."

"Jamie. I'm not glad to have been right." He paused. "Please go on."

"I never saw her after that. That's how we left it." Callahan sighed. "The hospital called me before she was released. You remember I had listed myself as her contact person, since she had no family. They told me her plan was to move back to her hometown, to Boston, and look for work. Said that I had the right to contest it if I had qualms. Fuck knows, I didn't want her to go so far away. But I didn't contest it." He looked down. "I was very well-behaved; I didn't interfere. She left. But. Y'know. But."

"Mmm."

"Yeah. So. I asked someone I know in Boston to keep an eye out. To run her name every few days after she got to town. He told me when she signed the lease on her apartment. I sent him to check out the neighborhood; make sure it would be safe, you know - for a woman alone. He told me when she took that crap job. Ten bucks an hour; she barely had to file a return. I kept hoping it was just a stop along the road for her, and she'd move on and get herself something better. But she never did."

"How often did you check up on her?"

"Every six months. Early January, early July. Kept myself on a schedule."

"But you never contacted her again."

Callahan hesitated. A tiny trip-up, his mind and mouth going in two opposite directions. If he hadn't already been on the ropes, he would have pulled off the lie without any difficulty, but in his current condition he couldn't quite manage it. Cabrese saw, and Callahan knew he'd been seen. They watched each other for a moment. Then Cabrese said quietly, "Very thin ice, Mr. Callahan."

Callahan's head went down and he groaned. Some minutes passed.

"Full disclosure," Callahan said at last.

"Please."

"I've, yes. I've been writing to her. Every six months. My friend confirmed her home address and I'd send a note. Nothing much. 'Thinking of you. Call if you need anything.' She never answered." He looked up, miserably. "She's changed, you know. I wouldn't have recognized her when I saw her again in DC."

"You wrote your phone number on those letters. That's how she got in touch with you." Callahan nodded.

"And so," Cabrese said, "five nights ago she contacted you, said she was in trouble. And then - this is the fun part - you arranged a job for her right here at Theta base, which is where you teach the Beztan prep class, and which is less than an hour's drive from your home. And you got it greenlighted by the boss. Who knows nothing about your history with her."

Callahan managed a laugh. "Pretty slick of me, I know. All that company training in subterfuge finally paid off."

"You are in this thing, Jamie. Drowning in it."

"Hey!" Callahan raised his head. "Four years, and I never laid eyes on her. Never went near her. Every six months I sent a note, two lines long. So give me a little credit for my iron self-control."

"Listen to me. We need information from her, and I'm going to count on you to help with that because you're the one she trusts. But you can't get involved with her. Steer clear."

"I know. All right?" Cabrese watched him set his face back down in his hands "I know this."

"I don't think you do. Four years she's been a church secretary. You want to know why? I know already. She's been waiting for you. Waiting in a tower for her prince to come."

"What? No. She never answered me. It's not that. That wouldn't be why."

"The same prince who saved her from Marchev."

"It's not that."

"It's exactly that. You know what else? I watched her security intake through the glass. Want to know what I think?"

"I know you'll tell me."

"I'm paid to spot liars and I'm very good at my job. You, Jamie, you're a professional liar and you can slip one past me from time to time. That girl? She's an amateur."

"She's not lying. She was with the Karth. I saw her talking to them, to Kozlan, when we were at Marchev together. I know she lived with them up in the mountains."

"That much is true. It's just everything else that comes out of her mouth that I find questionable."

"Like what?

"What was she really doing with them in the mountains all those months. Why would a twenty-three year old go for spring break in Beztan on the eve of a civil war. What really happened to the other girl, the one she was traveling with. You remember. The girl from Idaho. The girl who never came back." Callahan recoiled. "Yes. It's a pack of lies, all of it. Wake up."

"If you had seen her in Marchev, ribs sticking out, sores all over her body--"

"She was raped and tortured there; I believe that. That doesn't mean she was innocent."

Callahan laughed. "This is fucking bullshit."

"I listened to the tape of your EDD this morning. I'm going to remind you of something you said back then. _'I just wanted to save her. One last thing I could save from that hellhole, from Marchev. One fucking thing that I could still do.'_ You said that. Do you remember that? Does it sound like you?"

Callahan looked from one side of the room to the other and back again. "I don't remember saying it. But yeah. That sounds about right."

"You saved her at Marchev. Now you've saved her again. But here's something else you're not seeing. Look at me." Callahan obeyed, punch-drunk now, weary. "Ask yourself. How likely is it that a prison guard from Beztan recognized her after all this time, on the street in Boston?"

"It's possible. There are plenty of Beztan immigrants where she lives."

"Maybe. Here's a more likely scenario: Unstable girl with untreated PTSD. Living in a crap apartment, going everyday to a crap job, hanging on for a letter every six months. She's got your phone number memorized and she's waiting for you to save her. Year after year. Getting crazier and lonelier by the minute. Starts imagining things. A drunk leans too close. Some immigrant hey-babys her in Beztani on the street at night. Or maybe it's more than that. Maybe she hallucinates. Maybe she can't tell her nightmares from reality anymore. She gets confused. Or maybe, just maybe, she gets sick of waiting for you and decides to bait a trap. Invent a little story. Play the damsel in distress once again."

"No way. I saw her in Washington after that guy spooked her. Scared out of her mind."

"Shaking, was she? Jumpy?"

"That's right."

"She was shaking yesterday at her intake. She's still shaking, but it's day four; she'll be better by tomorrow." Callahan gave him a puzzled look. "It's not fear, it's alcohol withdrawal. Do you think your clinical acumen's as good as mine? Your girl's a drinker; walking down the same road that killed her father. His death certificate was in the files you gave me."

"I don't believe this." Callahan gripped the arms of his chair. "That stalker was real. She's in danger. And she wouldn't make that up; she's not like that."

"You don't know the first fucking thing about her. Did you tell me the truth about what was in those letters you sent her?"

"Yes."

"I hope so. Because I guarantee they're in her quarters, every one of them, in a keepsake box, tied with a red silk--"

"No. No way, she's not--"

"--which means, I'm about to see them for myself."

Callahan sat back hard. He looked stunned. "You're going to search her quarters."

Cabrese nodded. "Want to change your story now?"

It took Callahan a long time to answer. Finally he said, "I should have known, right? She's been here five minutes and already the company is doing its thing. Doing what it does best. I should have known what I was bringing her into." He straightened and said dully, "Just, please. Tell the men to make a clean job of it. Make sure they fix the place up when they're done. So she never has to know."

Callahan was a decent man. That was his strength. His instincts ran toward honor and nobility and protection of friends and underdogs. That was his weakness, too. "All right," Cabrese said.

"We're done here?" Callahan got up and thrust his hands into his pockets. "Are you going to pass me?"

"Jamie."

"Right. Fuck you, too."

Cabrese watched him go. He wished, oddly, that he could have given the man some comfort. Callahan had done remarkably well, considering everything that was stacking up around him.


	13. book 2 stuff.  angel back in the mountains.

Welcomed by her old companions.  
Koslan is delighted. But there is a darkness to him since getting out of marchev. She hears him beating his wife.  
She gets back into her Tivor clothes.  
Sense of male companionship, being a part of thngs, a soldier with other soldiers. Belonging.  
There's a boy she knew four years ago. Now almost a man.  
One man is a little envious or resentful. Wants to test her. Says they should raid a settlement and the bomb girl should come.  
Angel. Hears her war leader friend beating his wife. The terrorists are going to attack a settlement. It's so strange and yet so familiar. She doesn't belong, but she has no choice. She can adapt to this. There are her people. She made a promise. Also, her son is going (his first military excursion). She agrees to go, so she can keep an eye on him. 69. During the night attack, the boy gets in trouble and she kills a settler to save the boy. He has pissed himself and she helps him clean up so no one will know. 70. Afterward she sits in a council of military leaders. The horror is dropping away and she feels the exultation of victory, brotherhood. Her body is loose and strong in her man's clothes. (The womenfolk are in the background, forgotten.) The men propose ideas that she thinks will not be helpful. She speaks up and they look to her with respect. We could kidnap and torture Mirtallev's replacement; get him to speak for autonomy for the Kar Paval. Audacious. But with Callahan's help she can do it. The war leader - who is PTSD from Marchev same as her - comes to her side and agrees. 71. Later, the war leader's wife is once again taking a beating. Angel, halfman halfwoman, thinking they are friends, goes to see her afterwards. The woman is proud and snarls, "You think you are better than us? At least I am not a laughingstock, a whore!" Angrily she goes to her husband and kisses up to him publicly to demonstrate her happiness with the way things are. Angel is wounded and all alone. Later the war leader comes up to her and they talk briefly about Marchev - how terrible it was, but best not spoken of. War leader mutters that he doesn't know why she came back "to a hellhole like this. Why not stay warm in America?" Angel is stung that he doesn't understand or respect that she's keeping her promise - that she has loyalty. 72. Comes down the mountain. Gets in touch with Callahan. She tells him her plan, reminds him that he owes her. To Angel he says he will help if she will make it good for US. They agree she will call at the same time tomorrow.

Afterward, she talks alone with koslan. Tries to talk to him about his wife. He brushes her off.  
Bitterly he asks why she has come back. She is hurt that he thought she wouldn't honor her promises. He explains that if it were him, if he could live well in America he wouldn't come back here.  
She tries to talk to koslan's wife. Who calls her a joke and a whore and goes to stand beside her husband  
the boy follows her around a little. A girl likes him. she thinks about the poor treatment of mountain women and talks to the boy about being a good man.  
A council meeting. the men have different ideas about how to press their advantage.  
Angel pushes her own idea. The men accede.  
She calls Callahan

Callahan gets the call.  
Wonders what to do.  
Wants to help angel - though not the karth.  
\-- makes a counter-proposal to her, good for American interests


	14. end book two - callahan/cabrese

Callahan and wife say goodbye. She knows something's up. She wants him to be safe. Callahan lands in Sokhrina where he calls Simontov. Then goes into the hills.

The caper.

The aftermath. The Karth get what they want.

C vs c:

Later:  
Callahan/cabrese  
cab: sorry about Theresa.  
cal: (just too damn tired to fake anything.) well it will improve my chances for getting back into ambassadorial.  
cab: (deciding to leave the snakebite issue alone) You did well on that karth job. American interests are secure. I think you'll get ambassadorial.  
cal: And, since I no longer have anything to lose, i'll be extra extra loyal! (bitter sarcasm) I'm supposed to be okay with you people lying to me. trying to use angel to betray her own. i'm just a fucking pawn to you people  
Cab: you've gotten a lot of people killed. you've used a lot of people as pawns. And that's moral, because you did it for your country. But If it's right for your country to use other people, then you have to be willing for them to use you. you have to think it's right that you make the sacrifice you demand that others make. Otherwise you're just a damned coward and a hypocrite.  
Cal: If you can eat the cow, you should kill the cow. if you can kill the cow, you should be willing to kill yourself. You're right, of course. self-sacrifice is what's noble.  
Cab: Cow? what?  
Cal: something Theresa said. how about you, cabrese? you ever sacrifice anything?  
Cab: (on a personal note, quietly): Did you see her?  
Cal: Oh, yes. She's fine. She's buying weapons and ... turning out just like us. Funny, I... I thought she was so innocent when I found her. I think she used to be innocent and I thoughti could protect her. could keep her that way.  
Cab: Sometimes sacrificing doesn't mean death. it means losing something you love, sometimes even losing your innocence. Putting the best part of yourself on a high shelf because you've got work to do. You've gotta be willing to let things go... I'm gonna pass you for amabassadorial. if you still want it.  
Cal: breaking into an honest smile. Yeah. More than ever. Then, more darkly. Are you really going to recommend for what we talked about before. (wincing) Remediation.  
Cab: nods silently. "The company just wants to help." Adds, "And I'm going to stay your primary. I think that's best, since you probably don't want anyone looking too closely into the Angel matter. (sharp look from Callahan. cabrese smiles blandly.) So we'll be seeing plenty of each other.  
Cal: I think this could be the start of a beautiful relationship.

 

Callahan v cabrese, one version: Cabrese says, "You got it all. Your old job back. The mining treaty. You even saved the girl." "Lost Theresa though. She moved out. Eh well. Makes things simpler." Heartfelt. "I've always been proud to serve my country. ...Fuck. Enough bullshit. You and Quentin. You made plans to use Angel on a recon mission? How long was that the plan behind my back?" "Almost from the beginning. It was the obvious choice. You feel betrayed." "You used me. You used her. You used me to talk her into doing it for you. This is the company I work for, that I've given my life to, and I'm just another pawn on the board to you." "You've sacrificed pawns before. Told yourself it was necessary for America. So if America has the right to sacrifice people, and your conscience is clear with doing it, then doesn't integrity demand you be willing to sacrifice yourself?" I think I've heard this one before. "If you've willing to eat the burger, honor says you have to be willing to kill the cow. And if you're willing to kill it, honor says you have to be willing to die like it. Christ. All right. I've always known I might die for my country. They might sacrifice me again, at any time. That's how the game works." "They'll only do it for a good cause. The mines were very important, and stopping terrorism is worthwhile. Those friends of hers have been butchering civilians. " Long pause. Cabrese says, "Out of professional curiosity, I have to ask: how did you fake the snakebite so well?" "A little research and my father-in-law's medicine cabinet. Why haven't you turned me in?" "I know you think there's no loyalty but there is. I've watched you struggle and I know what you've been through. You're a loyal employee who had a onetime problem. I don't see a reason to put you in prison for treason. That would be a loss to us all. I'm going to approve your reinstatement in ambassadorial. Provisional on you passing torture remediation." "Well, you're a son of a bitch. But I'm sure this is going to be the start of a beautiful relationship."

\--Last scene: Callahan, oddly happy, leaves Theresa a message. "I miss you. And I'm giving you fair warning that I'm planning to win you back." 

o another version

Callahan and Cabrese hashing it out. "I want to meet with you off the record. "That's not how it's done. You want an EDD?" "yeah. I want a fucking EDD." "Let's do it then. In my office." They sit. Cabrese makes an ostentatious show of turning on the recording device. "We're on film. Go." "I'm past caring and I want answers." "All right." "You set her up. You and Quentin. That was no fucking diplomatic mission. Recon and destroy. Just like Sokhrina wanted. You set her up and you set me up to talk her into it." "All true." "How long were you planning it?" "It was an option from the beginning. It was one of our best options. If you hadn't been emotionally involved with her you would have not only seen it, you would have recommended it yourself." "When did it go from being an option to being the plan?" "About three months ago. Simontov wouldn't budge, not for you or Taylor. America needs that military base; we needed to keep our alliance strong with Beztan. The intel you got from her indicated that she could guide us in. Physically and emotionally she was recovering. Mentally she was malleable. We had a clear shot and we took it." "Sixteen years I've been with the company. You lied to me for months. You used me to betray her into betraying her own people. What did you think I would do when I learned about the tactical strike - go on working for you like nothing was wrong?" Cabrese pauses. He says, "Jamie. Here is where you have to listen to me very carefully. I deserve that and so do the bosses, because there's a side to this that you're too angry to see. First you have to quiet the shouting inside your head. All right? So let's go back to your old training exercises. Deep breaths in and out. Before you throw everything away, give me a chance here." Callahan hesitates angrily. "You've got nothing to lose by listening." Callahan complies. Cabrese sees the telltale signs of compliance, submission. He's regaining the upper hand. "You've used people. That's part of the job; you believe in the job; you do it for America. You use people and sometimes they die from it. And because you're a good man you don't sleep so well over that, but you live with it. Angel was a person. She was a person of value to America - a person who could be used, like any other. You're wanting to put her in a special category because she was special to you. But everyone is special to someone - all those bodies buried at Marchev, everyone you've ever used. If you were willing to make other people sacrifice their loved ones, it's only fair you be willing to make that sacrifice yourself. Make sense?" Callahan blinks. "Besides, your hands aren't clean in this. You used her too. You hired that man to threatened her in Boston. A fragile girl whom you loved. You sent her her worst nightmare. You told him what to say. And when she didn't call you after the first threat, you told him to escalate. You gave him a free hand to terrorize her as much as it took to drive her into your arms for shelter. Tell me I'm wrong." "You're not wrong." "We're all guilty, and we all have good motives. As soon as I realized he wasn't a figment of her imagination I knew it was you." Callahan looks down. "As for the company using you to manipulate her, the same rules apply. If you're okay with others being used as pawns for the protection of America - if you accept the ethics that the company has to do that sometimes - then you have to accept the same treatment yourself. Make the same sacrifice you demand from others - that's called integrity. If you won't do that, if that's not worth it to you, then how do you answer all those people you've used and sacrificed along the way?" Callahan, bamboozled, slowly answering. "Don't eat the meat if you aren't willing to slaughter the cow. And if it's right to slaughter the cow, you have to be willing to stand in the cow's place." Cabrese remains silent, letting Callahan think it through. "Then I cant trust Quentin, or any of you. You could lie to me at any time, for your own agenda." "The only agenda is America - its security and its welfare. That's what you've been called to fight for. You work for the company, that means you take on that burden and those risks, so people like your wife don't have to." "She left me," Callahn says. "Couldn't kill the cow. Went vegetarian." "I'm sorry Jamie." "Ah, well. Women." he thinks. "I take risks so others don't have to. I'm a pawn." "You are very good at your job and your government needs your service. I can't stop you from quitting, walking out that door with nothing, starting over. But I hope you don't. Quentin hopes you won't. He wants you to have ambassadorial. His way of apologizing and saying thank you." Callahan, thinking, then going for it. "All right." "Good," Cabrese smiles. All tension gone from the room. "Think we've about covered it? You feeling better?" Callahan nods. "Good. I'm turning the recorder off." Does so. Then whirls on Callahan. "There was no fucking snakebite; you tipped her off; you gave her the roofies, blew the whole damn operation and got two men killed - true or false?" Callahan freezes. Cabrese nods. "I guess I have my answer. Those men who died had hopes and families, and they didn't expect to be stabbed in the back by one of their own. How do you live with that?" "They were pawns too, weren't they?" "You'll get a secret trial, you know. You'll be found guilty of treason and spend the rest of your life doing the hardest time possible. Except I'm standing here and I know you. And I don't want to do that to you. I know what you've been through. I know how loyal you are and how much pressure the company puts on you and the performance they demand. You cracked because you're a good man in an impossible situation." "Are you saying you wont turn me in?" "Can you promise me it was a one-time stupid. You pass torture remediation, you get your posting to ambassadorial - and you keep your nose goddamn clean and serve your country with honor for the rest of your life. Is that the man you are?" Callahan nods soberly. "If I do this for you, you're mine forever. I'm going to keep you on a fucking short leash. Debrief the hell out of you. You can consider yourself on probation with me for the rest of your life." "Understood." "I can't believe I'm doing this. All right - you'd better go before I change my mind." Callahan, exhausted, staggers to his feet. Cabrese says, "Got to admit I'm still curious on one last point. When you sent the goon to frighten Angel, was it because you wanted her intel? Or just because you had to see her again?" "Mixed motives I guess. Now here's one for you. You letting me off the hook for saving Angel - is that really because you're a caring individual, or because you don't want light to shine on the fact that you lost control of two subjects, let them go off the rails together, never saw it coming?" Cabrese raised his eyebrows and Callahn pursues, "guess now we both have secrets on each other." "You can't burn me boy; I hold all the cards." "It was worth a try though." "How is Angel." "I don't want the company pursuing her. She's no terrorist. All she did was fight for her own side." "I already pulled strings, had her taken off the watch list." "Good because she wants to go to Idaho." "Yeah I saw that coming. That leaves you and me." "Looks like the start of a beautiful relationship." "Are you going to be okay? Hate to think about you going home to an empty house." "I got ambassadorial back. I think I can win back Theresa."


	15. bits and pieces

ANGEL/FATHER. She remembers how she learned from her father. Maybe he was bitter, unacculturated. Maybe he snarled, "I should never have left. Look at you - more American than mountain. Running with no-good boys. In the mountains, children work hard, they grow up strong, they fear God, they don't dress like whores. Honor, self-respect, courage. You know, your mother would be disgusted by the sight of you." He turned away. Angel - wearing a mini-skirt, having been sneaking cigarettes and pretending to be cool, watching the boys ignore her and choose other girls - was stung at the words. It was the only time he ever mentioned God. He didn't believe, himself, but couldn't stand to see his daughter turning into the kind of girl who would shame him, up in the mountains. The two of them were at each other's throats - distant, angry, when she was a teen. She went to college. He died. That's when she started worshipping his memory - imagining his honor, his self-respect, his courage. Kids at college asking about him and her giving a heroic version: he fought for freedom. He came from an oppressed people. The damn lowlanders took everything from his family. She hated the lowlanders now, in her father's name. She was her father's daughter. Conjugating, correcting. ANGEL/KAR PAVAL FEELINGS. Returning to he proud mountain patriotism. "I am carrying on the legacy of the mountain people who will never be vanquished." 

 

CALLAHAN/IDEALS. He remembers youth, young love, purity of purpose he had back then. Thinks of Angel running, and imagines she has that ideological purity he has lost; it hooks him even harder.73. Callahan. Realizing his phone is most likely tapped now. Feigning straightforwardness he goes to his bossman - "she contacted me, she has a plan, it may work out in our favor." Bossman listens. "Getting our hands pretty dirty there. What if it goes wrong?" "Then we deny everything. As always." Bossman sighs agreement. Callahan goes to Beztan, where he calls M2 to invite him to dinner.

74\. The caper is bloody but it works. The State Department car is pinging, is taken to garage, is rerouted by a "driver"; M2 is picked up, driven into a deserted area, where he is tortured, in fear of his life, his family. He is ordered to call in all his markers from his political cronies. "American wants the autonomy of the Kar Paval province. We want to work out mining rights with the local people. The capital can have ten percent of the profits for the first five years; you and your friends can make sure that goes straight into your pockets. But the Kar Paval will have its own government, its own constitution, the rights to its own natural produce, and it will conduct its own trade agreements and maintain a military without Beztan's interference. In exchange the terrorists will lay down arms, and the Kar Paval will give Beztan favored-nation trading status. Further details to be worked out later. That's the proposal you're going to put before Parliament tomorrow. I'm America," Angel says coldly. "Everyone who works for you, really works for me." She reels off some personal info about him. "I know everything. I own everyone. I can get to you anytime."

Her hand crept slowly across her body. She spread her hand to cover her left flank; her head went down. 

"Come here," he ordered. She obeyed, sliding forward like she was moving through glue. He had never touched her since that night in the gym, but they both understood his rights over her. He raised the hem of her shirt while she stood still and endured, shrinking back only a little. He took pains not to touch her, but he kept her flesh exposed for a good long time while he surveyed the mess she'd made: an ulcer of crusting blood and excoriation nearly as large as his palm. "Looks like it hurts," he commented drily. "How long have you been working on this masterpiece?" 

Reluctance. "A week. Sir." 

"Got any other marks on you?" 

She shook her head. 

"Does it help?" He was matter of fact, but fear leapt instantly into her eyes. He let the hem down gently. "That wasn't a trick question. Does cutting yourself make things easier? If it does, no shame. It's a common refuge." 

She unwound slightly. "It ...distracts me." 

"Okay, then." He had to do this part right. "Listen carefully. Do what you need to do, within limits. You can keep cutting yourself there, but nowhere else. You'll see me every day, Monday through Friday, so I can check it for infection. If I think you're cutting anywhere else, you'll have to start being see at the infirmary for stricter monitoring. I'll let you figure out what that would mean. You wouldn't like it, so dont risk it unless you're willing to face the consequences." There was relief in her small nod. "If you have thoughts of hurting yourself worse, tell Miranda or Lund to bring you to my office. If it's after hours, come out onto the quad and tell one of the guards you're sick. They'll take you to the infirmary. Infirmary will call me. I'll set things right. But if you don't do that - if you hurt yourself further - I'll be angry. I expect you to handle yourself rationally. Ask for help before you do anything stupid. Understood?" 

"Yes sir." 

75\. Two weeks later, the vote results are noted on the evening news: most of the parliament voted for Beztan's autonomy. Angel hears the news from a dirty hotel room in the lowlands. Callahan has just discovered his wife's goodbye note.

The knife twisted in Angel's abdomen. She knew this story. She knew this entire scene. She knew Carana was revivified by her audience of admirers, which struck a spark in her that Angel with her humble steady friendship could not strike. She knew the boys would laugh at all the right places but would not be listening as their eyes trailed over Carana's t-shirt. She knew Carana would giggle in a certain way that she never used when she was laughing honestly at something Angel said. It was a dressed-up, cosseted giggle she reserved for the men she drew in. 

Angel swallowed against the bad taste in her throat. She was about to turn back toward the cabin when the boys looked over at her. Carana turned to follow their gaze. "Angel, hey! You woke up." She shifted over. "Come here. Meet these guys." 

Brits, said Carana happily as Angel slid obediently in beside her. Surfers. They had names, which Angel didn't pay attention to. Was there surfing in England? She hadn't known that. She pictured England as gray, with long tame docks and women in Victorian bathing outfits; she pictured calm pebbled beaches and chalky white cliffs. Could Britain also have wild waves and loose glory? The boys, Carana said breathlessly, were heading for the southern coast of Beztan where the waves were becoming famous to those in the know. European surfers had started congregating there every summer. 

The two unknown boys greeted her politely and turned back immediately to Carana and prodded her to continue her story. The boy sitting across from Carana was the aggressive type, sure of himself. The other one was better looking but the more diffident of the two. He was getting boxed out by his friend, who kept leaning forward and angling his shoulders in a way that marked Carana as his own. The quiet one did not seem inclined to contest his claim. After a few minutes, he turned to Angel. 

They went through the usual routine: Where are you from, where have you been, where are you going next? She liked the boy's hazel eyes but resented his existence. He studied political science in London. He had been surfing every summer since he was fifteen. The other boy was his mate from when they were kids. He had been through Boston once; he showed off his meager knowledge of the Red Sox and asked if she went often to Cape Cod. She could tell, out of the corner of her eye, that Carana was taking a liking to the other one - she was tossing back her head in a familiar gesture, showing the exposed curve of her throat. Carana had a fake sparkle she adopted when the right kind of male was around. It made Angel think of peacocks and peahens, mating rituals, puffed-up chests. 

Carana had her own sensors out and evidently was aware Angel lacked enthusiasm, so she launched a gallant conversational ploy. "Angel's been everywhere," she told the hazel-eyed boy. "She biked all over Europe on her own last summer. She crashed her bike in the mountains once and had to carry it eight miles to the next town. Tell him, Ange." 

Both boys swiveled their heads toward her with interest. "Well," she said. "It was a good bike. Light. So, not much trouble to carry." A moment of silence followed this comment, and after an awkward beat she lurched forward to fill the dead air. "It was raining and I was coming down out of the Vosges, heading for Strasbourg. I caught the tire at the edge of the road and went splat; my panniers, everything. The rim was bent like crazy - but when I got it to the shop, the guy fixed it up good as new in just a couple hours." The bike shop guy had leaned over her and given her bandages for her skinned knees; she had let him buy her dinner at a local cafe and then regretted it later when he clutched her arm and she made excuses. But those were the unglamourous details and she kept them to herself. 

"That's awesome," said both the boys together. 

There was more talk after that. Finally Angel stood up. "Nice to meet you guys. I'm gonna get some sleep. See you back there, Cari." Carana surprised her by sliding out of the booth after her, her flirtatious mannerisms dropping away abruptly as she said goodbye to the boys. Suddenly she was just herself again. 

In his childhood, one of his neighbors had kept a pair of bony, nervous dogs on metal chains outside his dilapidated home. Callahan and a friend had decided, the summer they were twelve, to free the dogs. They had approached them in the night with gifts of fresh-killed squirrel, and Callahan had stealthily cut their collars. They had snuck back to their homes and left the dogs worrying at the meat. In the morning the dogs were still outside the house. They were still chained. All that had changed was that, instead of leather collars, the chain itself was now wound and tied around their necks. and secured with rusted padlocks. 

Favorite memory: hangover mornings in front of the TV, watching American shows dubbed in Czech. Deconstructing the night before: who had said what or gotten sick or kissed someone unexpected. 

.

Favorite memory: the night we made plans for the following summer, when our contracts would be up. WT was going to pay our plane tickets back to the US, and we'd each get a five hundred dollar bonus for completing the year. Carana didn't have any money - she blew her whole stipend every month, and lots of times she couldn't afford her half of the grocery bill - but I still had twelve hundred of what my dad had left me, and I was happy to pay her way along with mine. We named places on opposite sides of Europe, and finally we picked Italy - because Rome was one of my top choices and she was dying to see Venice. 

I was sad that night, sweet-sad, even crying a little into my blanket, because I knew that life wouldn't let us last like this. We'd go from Prague to Rome to Venice, and from there we'd end up at some airport, where we'd cry and hug goodbye. Boise and Boston were three thousand miles apart. I knew that. 

Secretly, I hoped she'd suggest me moving to Boise, since I had no family anywhere and nothing holding me to Boston except the familiarity of the streets and the smell of my beloved river. But she never said those words. Maybe she didn't think of it. I knew she had a whole life there waiting for her, and I didn't invite myself because I didn't want to be a parasite. It broke my heart to think of us apart, but what I knew was, wherever we ended up, we'd still be best friends. Nothing would ever change that. If she were thirsty I would have poured myself out like water so she could drink. I was pretty sure she would have done the same for me, but whether she would or wouldn't didn't matter. It wasn't about keeping score. I loved her; that's all. 

That's what I told myself.

.

...................................................................... 

They ambled along the path. "I was in Vuro for a few days," Jamie said. "I went hiking in the foothills of the Kar-Paval. I looked up at the cliffs and that was enough to give me vertigo. Rough mountains, you Karth are used to. The Accursed Mountains, isn't that what they're called?" 

"That's what the Arbezi call them, but it's a lousy translation." Angel smiled. " _Perejlai_ " - that's our word for them. It means more like, under a spell. Bewitched. Meaning, the mountains are too strange and beautiful to be formed by anything but magic. You should see the heights above the cliffs. They look sheer from down below, but once you scale them, it's a shallow dip on the other side with grassy pastures and wildflowers. It's all like that: wild crags giving way to gentle fields good for grazing and some farming; then if you go a little higher you're back to bare rock with fissures and caves and ravines full of rushing water. The icefalls glow in winter, and the grasses that turn all colors in fall. But the ravines will kill you in an instant if you're careless. You have to watch every step. Children who grow up there can run along the ridges fearlessly. It was harder for me, being born outside, but I did all right. You have to watch your feet just enough; but if you're too scared you're doomed to fall." 

She didn't tell him that when she first arrived, she had understood her fate was to die there. So she hadn't been scared. 

"I stopped in a Karthic village. Chirojo, it was called. Friendly enough people. I don't understand why there's no peace, and what the separatists want. When the war ended, the peace accords were meant to settle the differences." 

She snorted. Was he so naive? Chirojo was barely a Karth village - the citizens were Karth but they had commerce with the Arbezi. The real Karth in the mountains considered them half-blooded. They hated the Arbezi but they swallowed their pride. She hadn't seen the peace accords, but she could guess who was represented: the wealthy Karth of the foothills, the ones who governed villages like Chrojo and did business with the Arbezi. Jaro spoke of them with disdain. "There won't be peace. They've been killing us for hundreds of years. How can there be peace, after Marchev? They grind us down; they want us all dead. But they won't win. Savages, they call us. But we won't give up our land." 

She felt a twinge. Some of her comrades were in fact savages. Katin used to boast that when the war was won and the Karth got autonomy, he would lay a bloody line from the foothills to Sokhrina, killing every Arbezi child he saw along the way. He'd roast them alive and throw their carcasses down in the road for their parents to mourn over. "One of theirs, for every one of ours. That will even the score." 

She thought of Jaro's wife, who worked like a donkey and jumped, like all the Karth women, at her husband's commands. Many women were missing teeth, and she had lived among them long enough to know that husbands and brothers were the reason. They ate only the leftovers after the men were done. These things had gone from shocking to normal while she lived in the mountains. She would have been glad to kill any Arbezi child before it grew up to murder her tribe. She never hit a woman - she didn't have dominion over any - but within a week of becoming a vyescha she felt fully male and saw their side of it: women were for work and sex and childrearing; that was their place. 

in polite American society it was hard to keep that attitude. But she had thought that way in the mountains; everyone had thought that way. The Arbezi were to blame for it. The only reason fighters talked of roasting children was because the Arbezi were eager to do that to the Karth, had always done that to the Karth. And it was Arbezi persecution that kept good men powerless so they were not able to be men - that's why they beat women so often. 

She found herself telling him about the paths that had been made in the high peaks by driving tall bolts into the rock and running chains from bolt to bolt so that in winter you could pull yourself over the ice. Women made _taojan_ , light toboggans, from aspen wood and cloth in the fall, and everyone who spent winters in the heights carried one slung on his back as soon as the first snow fell. Trekking uphill along the chains was murder, but the downhill stretches were managed easily by settling into your _taojan_ and throwing its guide-rope over the chain and sliding to the bottom of the slope. "I was never good at that," she admitted. "You control your speed by tightening or loosening your guiderope and that's supposed to get you around corners without falling off. You see six-year-olds doing it like they were born to it - but I never got the knack." 

"You make me sorry I stopped on the lower slopes instead of exploring higher. But there was talk, you know, that outsiders get killed in the Kar-Paval. I couldn't find a guide who'd take me. Maybe next time, I'll just go it alone. Like you did, climbing up from Vuro." 

She did not want him doing that. She imagined the hostile feelings of the villagers, seeing the American blunder past their homes in his GoreTex. 

Funny how easy it was to talk to him. He had a smile so open it invited confidences. At Marchev he had won her over slowly. She hadn't meant to speak to him or anyone there - they were all so clean with shiny buttons which reflected her dirtiness and disgrace. But he had said Carana's name and that had been the beginning. He had kept the right distance from her, putting his chair near her cot but not too close; later walking beside her but with an armspan between them, adjusting his long legs to her creeping pace and looking perfectly natural. 

"The village I lived in was just a dozen homes of stone. The families are all related. The women and boys keep sheep and grow crops. In the evenings they build a fire and everyone gathers and eats together, until the first snow. During the winters the families eat separately because it's too hard to keep a big fire going." 

He smiled and listened and she told him more and more. She spoke of the hills upon hills, the black cliffs and steep tumbles of churning water in the spring, that in fall were edged in lips of ice and by winter were frozen solid. She told him about her long runs along the mountain, on the safe paths that were known not to be mined, carrying messages from one village to the next. "The villages are spread out because the sheep need lots of land to graze, since the grass is thin. But they are all within a _chorat_ \- a day's run. There's no phone service or electricity above Tamar so it's runners who connect the towns." Jaro had put a message into her hand one November and pointed down the path. She had understood it to be two hours to the next village and had started off at a good pace, but as the morning wore on, her steps got shorter and her stops longer. She would have turned back except for her fear of disappointing Jaro and explaining that she'd failed. Finally, at dusk, she'd arrived. The village chief came out to meet her and she asked, between gasps, if he were Nedok Chadz. "Nedok Chadz is the chief at Fomir," the man answered. "Five hours back the way you came." 

"Thanks for all this." It sounded awkward, but she had to say it. "For getting me out of Boston." 

That night she thought about the mountains. She didn't like those thoughts. It was simple to think of Jaro the hero. It was les simple when you remembered Jaro's wife nursing her black eye, still setting down the food, and Katin salivating at the thought of dead Arbezi children. 

Well, they had been at war, all of them. They knew their enemy; they knew what mattered: saving the mountains; protecting their families from the beasts below who had modern weapons. Those beasts had shown at Marchev what they were. Still, she didn't like to think of Kinae with her eye blacked, serving chochos. 

She could have a better life. She could have an American life. Dreams... 

//////////////////// 

She divulges a bit more information about the Karth: that she knows the mountains well, that she knows the settlements and villages up and down the west face of the range. She mentions the landmines making it hard to travel. His feelings: wanting to rescue her, seeing her fragility, concerned for her well-being in Cabrese's hands - "Are you okay here? Is cabrese treating you well? All this training; is it too much for you?" But she is clearly more content with herself, more fit, and devoted to Cabrese and Miranda. And he is eager to get more info from her to bring to Quentin. 

Angel tells him about the mountains and the Karth culture in glowing terms. She is very very loyal to her tribe. Tells him how she climbed into the mountains and was rescued by them. How noble and honorable. Her ancestors. Their land. Her fierce love of the land. But also when she speaks of her current life it's all, "Dr. Cabrese says" and "I have to ask Dr. Cabrese."


	16. angel/karth background

They argue once abput Achilles and patroclus - angel doesn't want them to be lovers. It's like xena and gabrielle. They're friends. Once they're lovers, it's just more romantic goop. I think friends should die for each other. I mean, she says, embarrassed now, I think there should be friendships like that. Like in stories. Blood brothers.

\-- But when she gets to town the numb deathwish is suppressed by the instinct to live, as bullets and explosions surround her. She crouches, hides, watches as army trucks stream past. people are running, a young man is shot in the street, sokdiers kick down doors, she hears beztan language which she can't understand but it sounds familiar, people are dragged into the street. "Do the job," she tells herself. "Do one damn thing right." She makes it to the house. She hides behind it, waiting. Maybe theres a field she crosses, a marsh. Behind the field, the mountains rise. The mountains to the kar-Paval. Somewhere up there, her father was born. Once she would have cared about whether her feet were wet. amazing how fast you get used to things. The old feeling from crew - you're a body, you do what you must, you follow orders, you die at the oar, you're a machine." The machine will wait until nightfall and then enter the house. She understands that they have probably fled. But what if they haven't? If they're injured? Honestly, what can she do to help them if they are? Valjean would do something. She won't think about carana, but when she does, it still seems unreal. night comes. 

\-- She enters the house by a back entrance. Everyone inside is dead. A woman. two young men. she wonders if the mother died protecteing her sons, or did the boys die protecting the mom. Out loud she says, "The exwife. two sons. Carana. four out of four. That leaves just me." lyrics cxame back to her. "Five to one, babay, one in five. No one here gets out alive." Crappy lyrics, terrible math. She and Carana had argued about it one night, laughing so hard that carana choked on her beer. Angel shouting "do the fucking math, ya moron!" and jumping up to sing, "Four to one, baby, one in five. Eighty percent of us get out alive" while Carana, who loved her some lizard king, clapped her hands over her ears and yelled "Oh God stop!" until they were both rolling on the floor, dying from it. dying of laughter.

Angel in the mountains. It's this easy. You climb. You just keep going. You're a machine and you don't think about anything. She'll put herself in the service of the Kar and die with them. Her father would be proud. She has taken some things from the house. water, food, warm clothes. She's a thief. But they won't be needing it anymore. How high is the mountain? Doesn't matter. You keep going because, well, here you are.

Angel, days later. stumbling into the Kar encampment. Sees boots. Two men. Shout at her. She's terrified. She throws up her hands. They shout at her some more. She half understands - it's a phrase her father used. "What the hell are you doing?" basically. She says, rustily, "I.. I'm looking for Damrat. It's a village. Damrat." Keeps her hands up. The men speak to each other. Then to her. "Who are you? What do want with Damrat?" "I know someone there," she says. Is it close? Who do you know? -- Family Morov, she says. --Don't know them. What do you of hem? -- Please help me, she says. I am Artana Morov. I was caught in the fighting in Vuko. I want to find Damrat." --You'll never reach it. It's the other side of the range. Artana Morov. What were you doing in Vuko? You're not from here. --Do you speak English? she asks. --A bit. You American? --I am from boston but my father was Grigor Stantsel Morov. My mother was Anila Kazi. The words are coming back to her. -Where are they? -Dead. --You alone? --Yes. --What's in your pack? --Clothes, food. --Show us. She doesn't want to. They could be thieves. But she has no choice. And she wants to show goodwill. The men rifle through her pack. The money and papers are on her body. --All right. You come with us. She scrambles to pack up the stuff and follows after them. Notices more about them. Like the fact that they have guns. They enter a village. There is talk, curiosity. She pulls out her map, wants them to show her where she is. Keeps slipping into Czech by accident. Man shows up, clearly the leader. "This is nevsanek," he says dismissively. You're looking for Damrat? -- Yes. --Because your mother and father are there? --They're dead. That's where they came from. She begins to think she will be repeating that forever. --You were in vuko. When? --I left there...counts on fingers...Three nights ago. --Three nights ago. How did you climb? --I just kept going up. He turns to his friends. "She just kept going up!" Laughter. Turns back to her. --I meant, which route? -I just kept going up, and west. See, on the map. He looks at it. --What did you see in vuko. What do you know? She tells him: trucks, soldiers, shooting. Tanks? he asks. Artillery? She doesn't know the words; he mimes them. She shrugs helplessly. --I don't understand Beztani. They killed my friend. She starts to cry. A woman is called over - it's Jano's wife. 

Angel and wife of Jano strike up a closeness. Later Jano says to her that there's a war on, and that she should get her American ass down the mountain into beztan proper, where there isn't any war, and find a way back to America. He'll have a guide point her in the right direction. She thinks of carana. --do you mean to fight them? he doesn't answer. --I want to fight them, she says. I'm Kar. I can fight. --Girls don't fight. She is sure again. --They killed my friend, I'm Kar like you, and if you're fighting, I'm fighing. Another man speaks up. --She could be a Vescha! There is laughter. Angel doesn't know the word. --How about it. Is she a Vescha? American Vescha! He puts his hand on her and she yanks away. The leader tells him to shut up. The meeting's over. She spends the day trailing after jano's wife, playing with the kid; wife appreciates that. 

The next morning, he says, all right, you wanna fight, you can fight. We'll teach you. He shows her a bomb. --Easy. You good at climbing. We show you where to climb, you put bomb in road and get out. 

She creeps forward, terrified, or maybe cold like a machine. She does the job. Getting back, the men raise their eyebrows. --Good. You be our bomb girl now. But you have to change clothes. You're a vescha now. --What's vescha? --Woman live like a man. Woman who does a man's work, dresses like a man. Understand? No husbands. --A vestal virgin, says Angel to herself. Are there any other vscha here. --No, he smiles. --Old way, There are a few in the villages around here, they are mostly old. No vescha today. But you'll be one if you want to stay. He looks over at the man who leered at her earlier. Someone suggests she might do better as a girl, fool the soldiers, maybe fuck the soldiers to distract them. More laughter. --No, says jano. No fucking. And to Angel - put on the damn clothes. And to the leering man --you touch her and i'll cut your.... off. This is war, no fucking in the bushes. Man protests, but jano repeats --she's going to be our bomb girl. Angel understands she is being given a dangerous job. Jano's wife warns her: you can still go down the mountain. You don't need to do this. Angel sees she is being warned. --They killed my friend. Seven times around the walls of Troy. 

Later, some respect. She is in men's clothes now, they treat her differently. She feels different too. "Bomb girl!" shouts the leering man, admiring her new look. She doesn't smile at him. Jano says, -no longer a bomb girl. Needs a better name. Your father named you Artana? --Means angel, she answered. -- Means female angel. Man angel is different: Gezhor. But that's not a name. Pick one. She thinks. Her father's name? No. Her grandfather's? --Tivor. --Tivor. To his wife he says, --This is tivor, bring him some food. She wants to protest, say she isn't hungry, the wife doesn't have to serve her, maybe she should get her own food - but she understands that more than food is happeneing here. And she is glad to be a man and be protected from the leering looks. The wife serves and she wants to apologize but the wife is not embarrassed; she serves; that's all. And Tivor thanks her. Then the men talk about th next job. --Our bomb girl can place- --I'm Tivor, sh says strongly. 

She does two more bomb jobs. They teach her to shoot. She turns out to be good at it, to their surprise and her own. Meanwhile, background talk about fighting, mountain passes. Thunder is coming - the Kar are fighting with the Manzar, and the city of Tamar is under siege. She understands that it is very real and very war and she is Achilles. It is very easy now to be expressionless. No one expects her to smile and giggle and make nice. The men talk to her as an equal. The women serve her. Just that easily, she finally knows what respect feels like.

TAlking to the wife, who tells her about the Vescha, the custom that says women don't inherit, so in the past an only daughter declared for vscha so her mother could keep the property. --And now? --Now she gets married to a cousin and the property stays in the family. If she is too young to marry it's an engagement; the mother runs the property with fiancé to back her up, since it will be his property someday. --Angel doesn't think this is very fair. but whatever. She asks, --you didn't want to be a vescha? --I like being a girl. The men can carry the bombs and guns; i'll carry the cookware. She sees jano and smiles at him. --We seem strange to you? Not like America. --I can see why my father used to yell at me. She remembers him calling her a bad girl. asks, --how did you and jano marry? --I was fifteen; our parents agreed on it. He is wonderful. just then, jano appears. Seeing the two of them together, he frowns and there is a little fear. Then he relaxes. --I thought you were another man talking to my wife. A short man! They all laugh. --but seriously. It's not right you stay here now. You visit when I am here. otherwise, you share the tent with three men. Seeing her face, he adds -- don't worry, they wont bother you. You're not female anymore. And in fact there is great relief in no longer being a target.

Religious rituals. A marriage? Prayer? Make it unclear what the religion is.

A shooting fight. First, a nonspecific prayer. "For God!" , She is stationed back of a rock with two others. "You shoot from back here. Kill any of them you can." He gives extra instruction to tivor: You know what to do? We're going to pull their tail, make them run, then you help kill them when they chase us." She nods. She doesn't feel anything. She's about to shoot people. It's funny how you can get used to anything. It goes well; she feels no fear because she feels nothing. Afterward she is sort of stunned, or empty - but then the men are delighted, backslapping. Someone points out htat Tivor is now blooded and they hoist her on their shoulders and carry her into the village, singing. Camaraderie blooms. Male friendship. She is seeing the fun, the allure of wartime. Need to flesh out the male characters. 

Refugees from Tamar are joining them. Bad stories of the siege. Gray faces. Fury. Helplessness. Anger. Stories of rape and murder by the beztani soldiers. --That's what they did to my friend, she says to Jano one night. --Raped her and shot her. It seems distant, unbelievable. Another life. She doesn't let herself feel it too deeply. --That's what they're like. That's what they've always been like." He tells the story of his own family - pride, hope, crushing defeat, imprisonment after past uprisings. People who disappeared;; people who died in prison. His own father went down the mountain, took a job in vuko. People used to do that more in the old days. Now, there's too much hatred. They hate use and we hate them. But we've got reason."


	17. decides to tell cab the truth?

" 'Five to one, baby, one in five.' You know that song?"

"Sure. That was before your time, kid."

"Carana and I." She could see it now, the apartment, Carana stretched out in bed touching up her perfect nails with Copper Glory, her last night's party clothes thrown on the floor, CD player on. "We argued about it one time. She loved Morrison. I hated him."

The smell of nail polish filled their bedroom. It was a girl smell - summer camp, freshman dorm at BC - sharp and clean and beautiful. But fuck if Carana wasn't playing that CD again. "Off, off, please God, no more. I'm gonna scream."

"But, the lizard king! How can you not love him; he's beautiful. God, he's a poet."

"Are you kidding? Listen: remedial math for the mentally challenged. Okay, first of all, five to one is not the same as one in five. Secondly--"

"--and you can shut up now--"

"--Secondly," she said louder, grinning, "one in six means, what, 80-something percent get out alive. So what the hell?"

"Oh my God you're a geek--"

"One third, 33.3 bar, cut in half; that's-- okay, that's over 83 percent. So, here's the damn correct lyrics, if he weren't a complete--"

And Carana leapt up and turned the volume to high, to ten, to eleven; then she shouted over it. "-- _la la la la la, not_ listening, can't hear you, shut up shut shut up!" She was laughing helplessly, pinning her hands over her ears with the fingers carefully arched back, keeping the wet polish out of her hair.

Angel jumped up and struck a pose, pelvis out, air guitar. "Five to one, baby," she shouted; "one in _six_ \--"

And Carana joined in, screaming over her so she went to full volume and then they were both screaming it at each other, Carana going _"No one here gets--!"_ while Angel tried to outdo her, roaring _"Eighty-three point something get--!"_ and then they came together on _"OUT ALIVE!"_ Both collapsed in laughter, weak-kneed, falling to pieces. Carana fell to the floor gasping for breath, one hand held out for a high five; Angel, her body still convulsing, stumbled to her side to give it, then fell down beside her. She was consumed by hilarity and joy and the perfection of her happiness. Best friends forever. Tears streamed down her cheeks. From the other side of the wall, where an old man lived alone, there came a furious banging and some muffled shouts.

This was love, heart-bursting in its generosity. _Carana, beautiful, amazing; my other half; please God let this last forever--_ She was flailing her legs, her abdomen ached from her helpless laughter; she couldn't breathe; her muscles had lost all strength. She grabbed a corner of Carana's blanket and stuffed handfuls of it against her mouth. They were a complete world to themselves, a merging of two into one without borders or sharp edges. Right here, she had everything she needed.

She returned to the present, where Cabrese was watching with his kind eyes. "The song," he said. "What does it mean to you?"

Maybe there was a chance of him understanding. He wanted to know - and Carana, asleep in the dark under the ground, deserved to be known. She was alone there. People might walk on her, spit on the ground over her bones; there was no gravestone. Her own parents didn't know where she lay. No one but Angel knew where Carana was She was the only one who could speak for her.

Roll the stone and expose what lies beneath: wet black leaves mouldering in heavy soil, stained petals on the ground, all things that rot in forests under the shadow of the trees. Laughter was gone now and Carana was gone, and her eyes were gone huge and blind as they stared backwards into the night.

"Two of us," she said. "Two of us rode down together on the night train out of Hlavi Nam. Five of us were supposed to come back. Can you do the math?" Her face was no longer her own, and a mirthless grin twisted up one side of her mouth. In a singsong voice that wasn't her own she chanted, "Four to one baby; four in five."

"Go on. How does it end?"

She could fall into his eyes. "You've already guessed. You just want to hear me say it." She heard the words push out from inside her, out of her throat and past her rictus lips. _"Four to one baby; four in five. Only I get out alive._ " 


	18. intro of angel, earlier version

On the other side of the rusted fence, the Brazilians were at war. They were playing shirts against skins as always, and the one-armed boy, Angel's favorite, was a skin. As he sprinted out hard and shouted for the pass, the naked stump of his right arm pistonned madly, and the sight made Angel hurt with envy. She had scars too but she kept hers hidden. Her long skirt flapped at her ankles. Her long sleeves were stultifying in the hanging air.

On their ragged strip of urban wasteland, lined by wire, the boys glinted. They were her age but they lived a different, freer life that she was barred from. At sundown they would step through the gap in the fence and melt into the neighborhood, into lives she couldn't imagine. On the field they leaped and crashed like heroes from a world apart. 

The sidewalk ran along the long side of the field. She trudged. Beside her, the boys dodged and spun and cut sharp angles, the ball drawing magnetically forward and back under their feet. Bodies, raw and wet, converged and pulsed apart. The ball sprang across the field to the sprinting feet of the one-armed boy, as if pulled on a string. He shot; the keeper leapt, grabbed, hit earth with the prize held high and triumphant between two hands as he called out something that could only have been Portuguese for "Kiss my ass!" The one armed boy shouted back in anger. Against the fence leaned a brace of girls with black cascading hair and tropic-bright tank tops showing cleavage. They were engaged in intense conversation; the field and their boyfriends might as well have been invisible. 

She crossed the street. Seven blocks to go.

Even though she'd arrived at work late and left early, clipping off half an hour at both ends, the day had been interminable. The minister had come by early and left a small cassette for her to transcribe. He liked to think out loud, about God and so forth. Presumably his thoughts made their way into his sermons - but she didn't know; she had never heard him speak and spent Sundays curled in bed trying to think of nothing. When she had first taken the job, she hadn't been surprised when he cajoled her with promises of God's love. She was a slightly crippled church secretary with reclusive tendencies; in other words, exactly the kind of person who draws well-intentioned Christians the way a night fire in the Kar-Paval mountains draws large pale moths after snowmelt season. But after three and a half years in the little second-floor office, keeping her eyes down as she entered and left, keeping to herself, even the lady volunteers had stopped pursuing her.

She surveyed the gauntlet before her. College kids loitered outside second-hand stores and hole-in-the wall restaurants, raking their eyes over her bulky shape in a casual, dismissive way that left claw-marks. Rounding a corner, she caught her own reflection in a glass display window and looked away fast. Not fast enough though; never fast enough.

She passed the Corner Café, then the poster shop. Her hands ached worse than usual - God's fault, since the minister had been overly inspired recently and his cassettes were running longer every week. On most weeks her finger-joints were spent by Friday and she took ibuprofen and stumbled headlong into the weekend - but today felt like Friday three days early. She was a terrible worker, because she hated it and worked as slowly as possible, also because of her bad hands. However the minister would never fire her, because he thought of her as one of the needy. He had kept her on for years, and he would keep her on forever. She would grow old at her job, in her apartment, walking these nine blocks to and from the T. She could not imagine anything happening to change her fate.

She could see the hard close edge of her building and a kind of relief came over her. All day was a slow unhappy prelude to the coming moment when she would get inside her building, her elevator, her studio. The door of her own private place would click shut behind her, and then, then she would exhale, and something stiff and heavy would fall from her - the false front, like a sandwich board, that she hoisted in the morning and carried around all day where people might be watching.

That moment - the door locking, the walls solid and dependable around her - was the high point. She tried not to notice that the relief of being home only lasted a few moments. An unnamed fear set in then, and in a breathless rush she would seize the remote, throw Ramen into the pot, microwave a coffee, cram a doughnut into her mouth, grab a book, open a creamer and a sweetener, log onto the computer, change channels, read celeb gossip on the internet, and hurl herself into Russian, calculus, medicine, astronomy. In this walled world she was safe from outside threats but faced danger from a different enemy, a subtler one that did not stop at a locked door. 

A block to go. She was uneasy. Was someone watching? Her gait always attracted brief attention - gazes jumped her way, then cut to the side in embarrassment once they figured her out. This time she felt something stronger, and her throat constricted and she took a quick survey, artfully casual and not at all resembling - she hoped - the twitchy vigilance of a paranoiac. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. A knot of college kids slouched at the entrance to the skate shop. An Asian couple was hesitating outside the Vietnamese restaurant, the woman pursing her lips and tapping a dark fingernail against the front window there the menu was displayed.

Nothing there but the proof of her own insanity.

She reached the steps, punched in the entry code. Her building had a false front just as she did - it looked handsome enough from the outside, but once past the solid front door, the illusion collapsed. The entry lobby had a hard yellowish floor laid out in squares that were chipped at the corners, and the fluorescent lights made everything jaundiced.

She checked her mailbox and found only circulars. She hadn't expected a letter from Callahan. It was only June; his summer letter came the first week of July. But she hoped; always, she hoped. It was a needle under her skin three-sixty-five a year.

In the piss-smelling elevator, she hit her button and held her breath and started counting. _One_ and the ancient mechanism roared into life. _Seven_ when the push-light blinked off. _nine_ when the sluggish sliding doors closed her in, and the hidden pulleys creaked to life above her. She had reached only _eighteen_ when she stepped out onto her floor - plenty of time; since she could hold her breath until twenty-seven. She had the key in the lock and her lungs were burning. In another moment, she locked the door behind her and exhaled.


	19. angel and cari - two nights before departure

Heels bit stone. That was Carana in the hall outside their door, drunk most likely, reeling home from her date with the minister of economics. That was still how Angel thought of him. Carana had been referring to him by his first name, Jiri, for seven weeks. His wife was out of town visiting her parents and had taken the kids with her. The kids loved Carana and the wife Marti loved her too (claimed Carana, though Angel had her doubts), since Marti was delighted that her kids now spoke better English than she herself did. And of course, of course, Jiri loved Carana. She had taking a liking to his looks, or possibly to his cabinet position. One day she saw him alone and simply kept advancing until he was backed against a wall in the kitchen, and then she put her hand between his thighs and he fell. This was something Angel would never in her life have had the courage for, but Carana was fearless and, like the Mounties, always got her man.

Angel could imagine the minister telling his wife all the pressing matters that kept him in Prague - and how much he hated to miss the family vacation, how much he resented the burdens of his post. 

The front door was flung open. She could hear Carana bump against something in the dark front room and curse. A sour taste was in Angel's throat though she tried to fight it down. It was two in the morning and Carana had been out doing God knows what without her. Running after one man and then the next; gluing up the gaps in her life with them - trivial conquests, five-minute love affairs that took flame as fast as newspaper and burned out as quickly. She was like an addict, Angel thought; shallow and chronically desperate for her next fix; couldn't walk past a man without tossing her hair around, putting a swing into her hips to make him gape after her. _Am I still irresistible today; can I still make all of you love me?_ Angel had been waiting for the thing with the minister to burn itself out. No one else had ever kept her roommate's attention for more than a few weeks, but the minister was showing staying power. And the longer Carana hung in with him, the more the affair clawed at Angel's insides.

"You wouldn't believe," said Carana as she stepped heavily into the bedroom - and wasn't that just like her too, not giving a damn who might be sleeping? Without flipping on the light she sank onto her bed, making it sigh. The shoes hit the floor. "I think I'm in love."

Propping herself up on one elbow, Angel asked the questions a friend is supposed to ask. She listened, as a friend is supposed to listen. She oohed and aaahed; she pretended happiness. Dancing had happened, and champagne and slivovice at a private club where everybody knew Jiri - waiters, maître d' - and had treated her like a queen because she was with him. And don't they know his wife? and do they treat her like a queen too while they wink at the minister behind her back ? But she bit back this thought because of course it was due to her unnatural jealousy, which tore at her insides frequently like the eagle tore at the liver of Prometheus. Carana deserved fun; she deserved admiration - even though the minister was a cheat and a loser who wouldn't have held Carana's interest for a minute if he hadn't possessed the pupil-dilating quality of power. Carana wanted a boyfriend (or twenty) because she was normal. Normal, beautiful, adorable. Angel, who wanted only Carana - not even as a lover but just as the platonic other half of her soul - was not normal, and knew she was not.

"Hey. So, what about you? Did you go to the WorldTeach party?" Carana had flopped onto her back. "Did you see Steve?"

"I went for thirty minutes; he cornered me; I told him I hoped we could be friends. He said he had enough friends. Then he went away in a huff and hit on Marian. Blah blah blah." She had not wanted to go but with Carana out having a torrid affair, she felt she had something to prove. She didn't want to be Carana's millstone with no social life of her own. Steve was all right, being strong and dumb and good in bed. It was just his bad luck that he was way less fun than her best friend. You could never really talk to guys - or rather, you could talk to them but you couldn't make them listen, and if they did listen they didn't understand. They never laughed at your jokes unless it was an act because they wanted something from you. They never really got you. She liked sex and the strength of a man's body, the heavy muscles, the heat and the grip. But aside from that, they had little to offer.

"You should give him another chance. He's sweet. And really into you."

"Marian can have him if she wants him." She had a recurring fantasy: She and Carana together forever, sharing a place somewhere, anywhere. There would be boyfriends on the side for the fun of it, but there would be an oath between them: they'd be true to their friendship above all.

"You're hilarious. You're not the least little bit possessive, are you?"

 _If only you knew._

"Want to hear something funny about Jiri? He offered me money tonight. If I would do something for him; something weird."

"What!" And there was a part of her that was delighted, because she wanted Jiri to be a jerk and Carana to wake up to this fact as soon as possible.

"No, you pervert; not a sex act. A job, sort of. He wants to pay me to go to Beztan. And talk to his ex-wife. She lives on some border and Jiri thinks it's not safe there, something about Beztan becoming too chaotic. He's been trying to get her to move back to Prague with the kids. She's got two teenage boys; Jiri's sons. She never remarried. The thing is, she won't come. He's called and written again and again. He's promised her an apartment and money and papers so she can work here and the boys can go to school. But she doesn't trust him."

"And so he asked you to-- what?"

"To go in person. Bring her money. Sweet-talk her. Show her photos of the apartment he's going to buy her. Prove his good intentions."

Outrageous. The poor woman would take one look at the American beauty on her doorstep and know exactly what the score was. "Why doesn't he just go himself?"

"Because she hates him. He cheated on her and she ran off to Beztan with the kids. Stole them from him. Never said goodbye. I know you're gonna take her side," she added, laughing. "You always back the woman. Anyway, I'm the one he trusts. He says anyone else would just steal his money and run off. Not me because I'm his ingénue. Or something."

"He wants his current mistress to go sweet-talk his ex-wife," she marveled. "Yeah; nothing wrong with that plan." The two of them deserved each other. The guy would move on soon, maybe, and Carana would get what she should have seen coming, what she pretty much deserved. And Angel might not be quite a good enough friend to be sorry for her.

On the other hand, though. On the other hand it stirred her imagination. A trek into parts unknown, carrying special papers, charged with a mission to bring back a man's family. If anyone had made her that offer, she'd be checking train schedules and throwing a change of clothes into a backpack, already charging towards the sound of trumpets in the distance. Ride in, save a family in the nick of time, bullets whizzing past her ears. But the minister was out of luck, because for all her great qualities Carana was no adventurer. She had never camped out or lived a rough life, never hitchhiked into nowhere with her fingers crossed. She liked comfort. She didn't fly by the seat of her pants except with men. But Angel herself? She'd do all those things; in fact she prided herself on being a tough girl. Her father's daughter; pure Mountain blood in her veins. This was right up her alley.

Poor Jiri. He had fallen for Carana's flawless face and figure, and who could blame him - but for this job, he'd picked the wrong half of the sisterhood.

"I'll tell you something," Carana said into the dark. Her voice was different now. The giddiness was gone. "I don't want to go. Even though he's worried about his kids and I should want them safe for his sake. I should want them here, safe, but I don't. Because I know that if they come here after eight years away then I won't see him anymore. He'll choose them over me and I'll lose him and I--" She hesitated. "I don't want to."

There was a long pause. Angel stared up at the ceiling, imagining patterns of pulsing color. So it was true: Carana cared about this one.

"You'd do it, Angel, in a second; I know you would. Heroic causes, self-sacrifice. That's your thing. But me, I'm different. I'm not a very nice person, am I?"

"Oh, Cari," breathed Angel. All her fierce affection rushed back to fill her up. Under all the flirting and the champagne shallowness was the real Carana that only she knew; Carana of the open heart and boundless love. "You're amazing," she said protectively. "Don't you know this? You're perfect. You're everything."

"Oh God. Don't I wish that were true."

They both fell silent. After a while Angel heard Carana's breathing coming deep and even. Her own thoughts, however, had taken wing. She was riding a night train into Beztan and Carana was beside her as the track spun out in the dark beneath their wheels. No one but the two of them on an adventure. They were bound for Beztan, land of her father's people, where she and Carana would stand on the ex-wife's doorstep explaining things, pulling out the papers and photos and cash. The woman would stare at them, at first bemused and then suspicious, but in the end they'd use their charm and persuasion to win her over. She'd call her sons. "Boys," she'd say. "These young women have brought news from Prague. There's a war coming. Pack your things." The five of them would go back together, where she and Carana would present the long-lost children to Jiri and she'd be reveling in her private triumph. _It's you she fucks but it's me she travels with. You've got a briefcase and fancy house, but we're the ones who saved your kids for you, you weak, two-timing, child-abandoning, mistress-keeping piece of shit. Me and her; a team. I'm the one who gets it done._

Already excitement was rising in her. They'd get lost; they'd get in trouble together. She'd take the lead. She'd take care of Carana.

Out on the north shore on salt-crusted summer days when the glare off the water blinded you, you waded out past the breakers. You waited for the towering wave, and when it was almost upon you, that's when you leapt. Head barely above water you paddled, frantic, desperate, while the pebbly bottom was sucked away beneath you and the undertow pulled you away from shore. Rising, borne upward, you threw your fate to the powers of nature, matched your strength against the swollen ocean. And when you made land again you knew you were powerful as Poseiden himself.

She climbed out of bed and padded to Carana's side. Tentatively, she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. She could feel a current surge between them.

"Cari," she said. "Wake up."

................................... 

Plavecka Ulice was silent. It was two in the morning and Carana wasn't home yet and Angel was worried. She didn't know what to do except wait and pass the time, so she had Les Miserables open in front of her and was moving her eyes over the pages. Carana was out with Jiri for the fourth time that week, and every night she stayed out later. Angel had been a good sport about it at first - it was just another of Cari's romantic adventures and it had started the way Cari always started those things. He was handsome and powerful - some kind of big shot in the government - and she had caught him alone in the kitchen and just kept stepping forward while he kept stepping back until the wall was behind him and they were both grinning at each other. This was something Angel would never in her life imagine doing, but for Carana it was like taking a drink of water. She was fearless and, like the Mounties, always got her man. 

Lately, though, the Jiri thing had stopped being funny. Angel had developed a lonely twisting feeling in her gut. Cari was distant. She came home later and later and didn't give details anymore. She hummed and looked dreamy. And when Angel asked with slight bitterness whether older men were better in bed than younger ones, Cari had raised her eyebrows and shrugged as if the question were childish and distasteful. 

Actually, what was distasteful was fucking a married man whose children you were tutoring and whose oblivious wife spent long stretches of time conveniently out of town. 

Footsteps resounded on the lower floor - heels on stone, the sound of a drunk and happy Carana reeling home to her faithful friend. It was two-ten and Carana hadn't thought of calling; hadn't thought of Angel at home worrying. She seethed. The front door was flung open. She could hear Carana bump against something in the dark front room and curse. Something was wrong with Carana, making her run after male attention and glue up the gaps in her life with them. She'd dated half the WorldTeach staffers and even had a one-night stand with Jason, the director, and Angel had laughed along with the stories of her exploits. But it wasn't funny anymore; it was pathetic. Like an addict, Carana couldn't walk past a man without tossing her hair and putting a swing into her hips to make him gape after her. 

"You wouldn't believe," said Carana as she stepped heavily into the bedroom - and wasn't that just like her too, not giving a damn who might be sleeping? Without flipping on the light she sank onto her bed, making it sigh. The shoes hit the floor. 

"It was fun? Where did you go?" 

"He belongs to some club. Everyone knows him there, the waiters, the maitre d'. We danced until my feet hurt. I drank too much. I'm gonna feel like shit in the morning." 

_And the waiters and the maitre d' don't know his wife? Or just don't care?_ Jealousy tore at her insides, like she was chained to a rock with an eagle tearing at her liver. And she was in the wrong; she knew that. Carana was normal. Angel, who wanted Carana in her life the way Damon wanted Pythias, was the weird one. 

"What about you? Did you go to the WorldTeach party?" Carana had flopped onto her back. "Did you see Steve?" 

"I stopped in." She shrugged. She didn't care about Steve. He was sexy but he wasn't fun like Carana was fun. "I told him I hoped we could be friends. He went away in a huff and hit on Marian. Blah blah blah." You could never really talk to guys - or rather, you could talk to them but you couldn't make them listen, and if they did listen they didn't understand. They never laughed at your jokes unless it was an act because they wanted something from you. They never really got you. In the world she wanted, you messed around with them, but when the night was over you went home to your best friend. You swore an oath to each other, that friendship came first. 

"You should give him another chance. He's sweet. And really into you." 

"Meh. Marian can have him." 

"You're hilarious. You're not the least little bit possessive, are you?" 

_If only you knew._

"Want to hear something funny about Jiri? He offered me money tonight. If I would do something for him; something weird." 

"What!" She was delighted. She wanted Jiri to be a jerk, and disgusting, and she wanted Carana to wake up to this fact as soon as possible. 

"No, you pervert; not like that. A favor. A job." She hesitated. "He has family in Arbeztan - his sons with his ex-wife. He wants to bring them to Prague but they won't come. He asked me to go there and talk to them." 

"Weird. Why?" 

"He thinks it's getting dangerous where they live. Some kind of ethnic thing. The ex-wife is Manzari, whatever that means, and the pure-blooded Arbeztan people hate the mongrelly Manzari people and now it's worse than ever. So he's been calling and writing and promising to put her and the kids in an apartment and fix their papers. But she doesn't trust him." 

"I don't get it. Why should you go?" 

"He says, if I go in person I could bring her the documents he's prepared. Like, residency permits and a whole pile of money and photos of the apartment he wants to rent for them. She keeps hanging up on him; he keeps trying to warn her but she won't listen; so he needs someone to go in person and bring all three of them back here. And he says I'm the only one he trusts." 

"He should go himself, and leave you out of his mess." 

"Yeah but he's always busy with work. Plus, she hates him. That's why she ran back to Arbeztan when they divorced. She stole the kids. I'm supposed to go show her the documents and the money to prove his good intentions." 

It stirred her imagination, though. A mission. A trek into parts unknown, carrying special papers, charged with bringing a man's family out of danger. If the idea had been proposed to her, she'd be already throwing a change of clothes into a backpack and checking the schedules at the train station. Carana was great but she wasn't an adventurer, except with men. Whereas Angel prided herself on being rugged. 

Her father would want her to go. He was from Arbeztan - both her parents were - a Karth who had nothing but venom towards the murderous Arbezi. He had lost half his family during an epic journey to escape persecution and war in the mountains. She was a daughter of the Karth. Imagine returning to her parents' homeland on a journey like that. 

"I'll tell you something," Carana said into the dark. The giddiness had left her voice, suddenly. "You know why I don't want to go, really? It's because I don't want those boys to live in Prague. He hasn't seen them for ten years. If they come, he's going to be visiting them and loving them; he won't have any time for me. And I know what that sounds like. Those kids are in danger and I should worry about them, not about myself. I know I'm selfish. But-- I love him, Angel. I never thought I'd say that about a guy. I don't think I've ever felt like this before." 

Angel stared up at the ceiling, imagining patterns of pulsing color. 

"And you'd do it, Ange; I know you. You'd do it in a second, because you're all brave and tough and you don't get scared; you don't need anyone, and you love all that self-sacrifice and heroism and noble causes. But me, I'm different. I'm not a very nice person, I guess." 

That was the trouble with trying to hate Carana. You couldn't do it for very long. 

"He should have asked you. But he picked the wrong half of the sisterhood - the weaker half. His bad luck." 

She was trying to think of something to say to that. She came up empty. Then Carana gave a low cry and muttered, "It's hell, you know? Caring about a guy like this, and being afraid all the time of losing him." 

She thought a while. Finally she said, "You gotta do what you think is best." Carana didn't answer. 

After that, Angel lay for a while with her eyes wide and staring in the darkness. She could see herself riding a night train into Arbeztan, the track spinning out in the dark beneath the massive wheels. She'd stride into town and stand on the ex-wife's doorstep. The woman would be suspicious, and Angel would pull out the cash first and start explaining things to her. She'd call her sons, who would be dark and handsome. "Boys," she'd say. "Pack your things. This girl has come to save us." 

It would be almost perfect. Only one thing would make it better. 


	20. the angel backstory continued - on the train

_Miles to go before I sleep._

"We're doing it," said Carana. Angel barely nodded. They had watched the sun set an hour ago as they crossed Romania; tongues of red spitting between the rough Mangarel peaks. Now she could see nothing out the window but she stared anyway, hypnotized by the shadows of flying forest against night sky, skin prickling, loving the rising thrill. There was no need to speak. The train thrummed all around them. It was a fierce form of conveyance, a thousand tons of iron spearing the night. Every now and then a cluster of lights marked a village in the distance. There were so many little towns they were leaving behind them; so many people sleeping, going nowhere, unaware of all the adventure that could be theirs for the grabbing. She grinned at Carana. They were riding into darkness. They were together. 

It was too bad that Carana was not enjoying herself as much as Angel had hoped. She bothered herself over niggling details, like where would they sleep in town and what would they do if the woman, Anna, refused to come back with them. Carana had purchased a Beztan guidebook at the Traveler's Bookstore on Narodni Ulice, and had been reading parts of it aloud. "Vuko, known as the Jewel of the North, is one of Beztan's oldest cities. Settled first by the Manzari, a Slavic people who migrated thousands of years ago from the environs of the Black Sea, Vuko is also the gateway to the scenic Kar-Paval mountains. Downtown, the Provincial Museum contains a world-renowned archaeological collection. Travelers will also enjoy shopping the boutiques of the historic riverside district, and taking daytrips to the quaint Manzari villages in the hilly north, which are famous for colorful weaving techniques and a distinctive cuisine." 

Now she looked up from the book. "Where are we, do you think? How much longer?"

"We'll cross the border in two hours and pull into Vuko station at three in the morning. It's only 9:30 now. Once we arrive, it won't be more than a mile's walk into town."

"At three A.M? Let's not go wandering until morning comes and we can see what we're doing. We should have taken a later train."

"No, this way we can get to her really early, before she leaves the house. Otherwise she and the kids might be out and we'd be stuck waiting all day for them. We can sleep in the train station until dawn and buy a map when morning comes. It's perfect." It really was. They were in motion, over halfway there, and nothing had gone wrong yet. The getting going was always the hard part; after that you were committed and you just took everything as it came at you. She had toured the apartment after Carana, taking a last look around, killing the TV and putting everything in order. They were both packed for summer heat. They had decided to divide Jiri's money between them in case one of them got robbed - not that that was likely; it was just that Angel had done enough traveling that sensible precautions occurred to her. Carana was carrying on her body all the official papers she was supposed to show the ex-wife: a work visa with the woman's name already on it, photographs of an apartment Jiri planned to buy her, and its neighborhood and a local high school. There was another bundle of cash, meant to win her trust but also to pay for the cost of shipping everything important up to Prague. Finally there was a letter from Jiri himself, in an unsealed envelope marked _Annik._ Angel was pretty sure her Czech was good enough to let her understand the gist of it. She was curious to read it, but Carana said no. She couldn't face it, she said. 

"It's going to be about the boys and how much he misses them. Or more stuff about Beztan politics and the danger of staying in Vuko. Either way it'll just freak me out. Plus, you know, it's private." She frowned. "They were married for ten years. I've only known him since September."

Angel wanted to point out that their WorldTeach contracts would be up in May. Surely Carana wasn't planning to hang on through the summer or beyond, playing for a permanent role as the man's American mistress. Once the program ended and they lost their housing subsidy, Prague would be practically unaffordable. Well, maybe not. There might be other jobs around. Also there were ways a girl could scrape by - even Angel had made good use of her limited feminine wiles last summer while knocking around France and Germany for a few weeks before she was due for orientation. For a beautiful girl like Carana, finding free housing for a few months - say, in exchange for a little nannying or housekeeping - would be a piece of cake. 

Another possibility occurred to Angel. Maybe the minister had been making promises. Maybe Carana had reason to think that by May, Marti would be out of the picture. This thought struck Angel like a penetrating stab wound into her stomach. Could it be that Carana was keeping secrets from her?

She had hoped that when the teaching semester wrapped up, they would travel together for a few weeks - a farewell tour before splitting up for good. Jiri was paying them both a bundle for this gig. There had been a magical night when they had stayed up til four in the morning talking about nothing and everything, and one of them had floated the idea of seeing Italy together. Angel still hoped for that, but Carana hadn't mentioned it since.

After that - well, Angel didn't like to think about what would happen after that. The future waited up ahead like a dense dark mass, a black hole maybe, and she was moving towards it by a force akin to gravity. It could not be avoided, so it did not bear thinking of. She'd end up back to Boston because that was all she knew; it was her only anchor in the world and it was the place her whole family was buried. College was behind her. She might hang out on campus but she had seen grads do that and after a few months even the party boys and sports heroes just seemed pathetic hangers-on clinging to their glory days. So she'd get some kind of job and start on adulthood, figure out her next move, get used to being alone in the world. Carana, she had assumed, would return to Idaho where a raft of brothers and parents were there to adore her, and local guys she'd grown up with would fall all over her. But she and Angel would call each other every week and see each other on vacations. Angel supposed that someday they'd both end up settling for some guy or other and be each other's maids of honor, come to all the children's graduations. More promisingly, Carana might go to grad school. She wasn't too much of a student, she said, but it beat making an honest living. Angel was looking for the right moment to mention that there were lots of grad schools in Boston.

"What if we don't find them? What if they're away on vacation; then what?" Carana's nerves, she saw, were strung tight. So were her own. But whereas she was alert and confident, feeling the way she felt on the starting line - head up, blade in the water, waiting for the gun to set her coiled body springing off the foot stretchers - Carana was just plain worried.

"If that happens, we'll figure it out. We'll be fine." Her friend's worries made her feel strong and protective. They were gunning into Vuko at a fast gallop, banners flying. They were young and invincible and whatever came, they would take it in stride.

"We should pull the seats together and sleep while we can," she said. "Pretty soon it will all be happening." Just what would be happening remained a question. But that was the way of adventures. You took a step into the unknown; the door slammed shut behind you; and after that you had no choice but to keep moving. Eventually things worked out and you came out on the other side. 

She pulled out all six seats into their reclined position so they made two long beds, as good as a night in a hotel. Carana pulled a sweatshirt out of her backpack and bundled it up as a pillow. "I hope I can sleep. This whole thing still seems crazy."

"For five hundred bucks, crazy is worth it."

"What if we sleep through our stop?"

"They won't let us; they already marked our tickets. And I'll be awake by then." She counted off the days ahead of them. By tomorrow, Tuesday morning, they'd be in town finding the ex-wife's home. By Tuesday night they might have her convinced to go. Angel would say flatly, "We're not leaving without you," and eventually the woman would see reason and give in. She hadn't seen Prague in eight years and Jiri had told Carana to stress how much it had changed. They were supposed to tell Anya how cosmopolitan the city had become as well as being still beautiful; how good it would be for the boys and how much he, their father, would be able to do for them. After that there would be hard work: organizing, packing, transporting the woman's stuff to the station and making whatever arrangements needed making. They had to be on the train back north by next Sunday morning at the latest, because the WorldTeach term started up again on Monday. 

She thought about the note folded in her pocket, the one she had almost left behind on the kitchen table. It was addressed to Jason, their WorldTeach coordinator. _We're going to Vuko,_ it said. _Here's the address of the woman we've gone to meet. Here's the phone number of Jiri Holbik who sent us there - a WorldTeach client of Carana's. If anything happens; if we're late getting back, check with him and see if knows anything._ She had a nine AM tutoring session Monday morning when spring break ended, and she suffered a tiny concern about what would happen if they didn't make it back on time. What if the woman was recalcitrant? What if the boys insisted on staying through the weekend for some reason? If she and Carana missed their classes, their students' parents would call WorldTeach and Jason would call the apartment; not reaching them, he would eventually come around to yell at them in person. For a few koruny the building manager would let him in. He'd see the note and at least know they hadn't flaked on the program on purpose. And if they were in real trouble - not that they would be - at least someone would know where they were headed. They hadn't told their other friends any details, just "spring break in Beztan." No one was supposed to know about Carana sleeping with one of the clients. If gossip reached Jason, he would yell about unprofessional conduct, and possibly fire her on the spot.

But at the last moment, after Carana tromped down the stairs with her backpack over one shoulder, Angel had decided to leave the envelope in her pocket. If they were delayed a day or two, Jason might get apopleptic and overreact, causing an international incident. He might do something crazy - alert the Prague police, get Interpol involved, have half of Vuko beating the bushes for them, call Carana's parents and make them worry. 

Nothing would go wrong and by Monday morning, the adventure would be behind them. She touched the packet of money under her clothes. Then she turned out the light in the cabin and murmured goodnight to Carana and pulled her sleeping bag over herself like a blanket. And in the dark she hugged herself with anticipation and delight.


	21. angels backstory - carana's end

Angel awoke and peered into the darkness. She was alone in the cabin. Across from her makeshift bed, where Carana had been, the grey sweatshirt lay in a bunched heap with one empty sleeve trailing to the floor. 

She pulled on her sneakers, sockless, and stumbled out into the silent passageway. 

The overhead lights were dim and there was no noise but the ceaseless thrumming of the train. She pushed open the door at the end of the cabin and she stepped out onto the connection plate. Breathing in the thick air she thought: Beztan. She was in her parents' country, breathing the air they had been raised on. But they were mountain people and she was in the coastal plains. She could see no mountains rearing in the night.

The next car was also dim and quiet with no one in the corridor and all the cabin doors pulled shut.

Next she pushed through the door into the café car. It was lit by a few pale bulbs overhead, the long low counter unmanned at this hour. A single booth was occupied, and the yellow light showed Carana's profile, her easy movements, her hair feathering back over her shoulder. She was laughing. Across the table were two boys, leaning towards her with eager expressions.

"And then," Carana was saying, "the police showed up, shouting in French, and the three guys grabbed the money and--"

The knife twisted in Angel's abdomen. She knew this story. She knew this entire scene. She knew Carana was revivified by her audience of admirers, which struck a spark in her that Angel with her humble steady friendship could not strike. She knew the boys would laugh at all the right places but would not be listening as their eyes trailed over Carana's t-shirt. She knew Carana would giggle in a certain way that she never used when she was laughing honestly at something Angel said. It was a dressed-up, cosseted giggle she reserved for the men she drew in.

Angel felt leaping flames - rage, jealousy? - but suppressed them quickly into embers. She was about to turn back toward the cabin when the boys looked over at her. Carana turned to follow their gaze. "Angel, hey! You woke up." She shifted over. "Come here. Meet these guys."

Brits, said Carana happily as Angel slid obediently in beside her. Surfers. They had names, which Angel didn't pay attention to. Was there surfing in England? She hadn't known that. She pictured England as gray, with long tame docks and women in Victorian bathing outfits; she pictured calm pebbled beaches and chalky white cliffs. Could Britain also have wild waves and loose glory? The boys, Carana said breathlessly, were heading for the southern coast of Beztan where the waves were becoming famous to those in the know. European surfers had started congregating there every summer.

The two unknown boys greeted her politely and turned back immediately to Carana and prodded her to continue her story. The boy sitting across from Carana was the aggressive type, sure of himself. The other one was better looking but the more diffident of the two. He was getting boxed out by his friend, who kept leaning forward and angling his shoulders in a way that marked Carana as his own. The quiet one did not seem inclined to contest his claim. After a few minutes, he turned to Angel.

Where are you from, where have you been, where are you going? They went through the usual on-the-road routine. She liked his hazel eyes but resented his existence. He studied political science in London. He had been surfing every summer since he was fifteen. The other boy was his mate from when they were kids. He had been through Boston once; he showed off his meager knowledge of the Red Sox and asked if she went often to Cape Cod. She could tell, out of the corner of her eye, that Carana was taking a liking to the other one - she was tossing back her head in a familiar gesture, showing the exposed curve of her throat. Carana had a fake sparkle she adopted when the right kind of male was around. It made Angel think of peacocks and peahens, mating rituals, puffed-up chests.

Carana had her own sensors out and evidently was aware Angel lacked enthusiasm, so she launched a gallant conversational ploy. "Angel's been everywhere," she told the hazel-eyed boy. "She biked all over Europe on her own last summer. She crashed her bike in the mountains once and had to carry it eight miles to the next town. Tell him, Ange." 

Both boys swiveled their heads toward her with interest. "Well," she said. "It was a good bike. Light. So, not much trouble to carry." A moment of silence followed this comment, and after an awkward beat she lurched forward to fill the dead air. "It was raining and I was coming down out of the Vosges, heading for Strasbourg. I caught the tire at the edge of the road and went splat; my panniers, everything. The rim was bent like crazy - but when I got it to the shop, the guy fixed it up good as new in just a couple hours." The bike shop guy had leaned over her and given her bandages for her skinned knees; she had let him buy her dinner at a local cafe and then regretted it later when he clutched her arm and she made excuses. But those were the unglamourous details and she kept them to herself. 

"That's awesome," said both the boys together.

There was more talk after that. Finally Angel stood up. "Nice to meet you guys. I'm gonna get some sleep. See you back there, Cari." Carana surprised her by sliding out of the booth after her, her flirtatious mannerisms dropping away abruptly as she said goodbye to the boys. Suddenly she was just herself again. 

When they were back in their cabin, Carana turned to her. "You didn't like yours? They were a pretty cute duo, I thought."

"They were fine. Just not in the mood."

"Something wrong?"

"Nah. It's just, it's after midnight." She tried to squelch the bitter tone leaking into her words. "I need to sleep. We'll be in Vuko soon and we'll need to figure out a plan." 

"Yeah, sorry. They were pretty damn cute though. Admit it. Although you took the smart one."

It was necessary at this point to be generous in return. "You should have stayed and talked to them some more. You liked yours. And you might as well go for it; after all, it's not like Jiri is hanging around being faithful while you're gone."

Carana looked like she'd been slapped, and then a slash of rage crossed her face. Angel rushed to take back the words. No, no; she hadn't been criticizing! "I just don't want to see you be one of those girls that does all the waiting and sacrificing. I mean, he's married to someone who isn't you. You don't owe him anything. You deserve to have fun. That's all I meant."

Carana maintained a look of stony dissatisfaction. Finally she said, "I didn't mean to fall in love with the idiot. You don't have to keep throwing it in my face that he's married. If you had ever cared about anybody yourself, then you'd understand."

Angel's stomach shrank up. What had she said? "I know; I'm sorry. I'm sure he's great." They were both quiet after that. Carana could be heard shifting around for a while, but eventually she lay still and her breathing became regular. Angel lay with her eyes open, the sleeping bag up over her face, and tried not to hear and rehear the phrase _i didn't mean to fall in love_. She concentrated on the mechanical noises of the train as it coursed stiffly down its track.

.

A pounding sound woke her. It was still dark, and a man's voice was shouting in a foreign language. For a moment she could not remember where she was, and then it came back to her and she fumbled toward the light switch. Carana was sitting up, shoving her hair back from her face. Someone was beating on their door. Before Angel could rise, the door folded open and a train official filled the gap. 

"Misses," he said. "Ingliski? Speak English?" She nodded. There was more pounding coming from down the corridor; doors opening, voices. "This train is not to stop at Vuko," he said. "This train is to go through to the next stop, Sirimic."

She nodded. Then, "Wait. What?"

"This train will go to Sirimic, Kinichka, then Montaz. Your tickets are permitted for continuance to Sirimic. There will not be a problem." He had the wooden face of all train officials in Europe. His uniform was spotless navy and his boots shone.

"But we're going to Vuko. We're meeting people there. This train is supposed to go there."

"No stop at Vuko. Not tonight." With no alteration in expression he pivoted in a military way and moved off down the corridor. Angel looked to Carana and the two of them pulled on shoes and hastily went out of the cabin. Angel touched the pouch of money under her clothes. 

"Sir," she called after him. But the man did not look back.

They made their way in the direction he had gone, into the next car where a few passengers were now loitering in the corridor, talking in a language that was Slavic but unfamiliar. The official disappeared through the doors to the cafe car. "Excuse me," she tried to a small group of passengers. She said it first in Czech and then in Karthic. She had never used Karthic with anyone but her father. A tall man with pale eyes looked down at her. "Vuko?" she said. And then in English, "Train goes to Vuko?" He shook his head and answered, speaking decent English with a heavy accent.

"In Vuko there is a fight. There are soldiers. The station is just ahead but the driver will not stop there. Not safe tonight, he says. He takes us to Sirimic. Thirty minutes south. A bigger city. Closer to the sea."

Carana was beside her. "Fuck," she muttered. "Now what? What does he mean?"

Angel asked the man for an explanation, and he repeated what he said before. Soldiers, fighting. "You can hear it." Angel listened but heard nothing. The train hummed. She realized it was not moving. 

An animal excitement was spreading through her. Her skin pricked and the hairs along her arms stood upright. She turned to Carana, lit from within by a dangerous high-voltage feeling. "Come on," she said. "Let's get our stuff. This is it. It's time to jump off."

"Oh no. Hell no, you heard him." Carana was shaking her head. "No soldiers for me. No thanks."

"We can do this," said Angel. "This is what we came for. You and me; let's do it." _Soldiers, a fight, and a family awaiting rescue._ "Come on, Carana. Don't let me down."

"Let you _down!_ No way. No fucking way." She was backing away. Someone down the corridor called out her name and she turned. It was one of the boys from the café car. The sparkle leapt back into her smile. "Paul!" she cried in a high excited voice. "What the fuck, huh? They say there's fighting."

"I know - pretty messed up!" He lurched around a knot of passengers and stood beside them. "We just heard it from a local. The Vuko stop is a few K up ahead, but no one knows exactly what's going on. The train people are trying to figure out what to do." He put a hand on Carana's arm. "No worries. I'm sure it will be fine."

Angel stared from one of them to the other. Carana was no longer looking at her; she was smiling into the boy's eyes as if she'd found refuge. "I'm going," Angel said. Carana did not hear, did not look her way until she grabbed her arm to capture her attention. "I'm going. I promised your boyfriend. We both did. I won't break my word."

"You're crazy," said Carana over her shoulder. "I'm not going into some kind of fight. Jiri wouldn't want that, anyway."

"If there's a fight, then that family needs us. And, you may be a fucking coward - but I'm not." She was cool and rigid. Carana gaped. Angel had the curious sense that the train, having stopped, had transferred all its mighty power into her body. She was herself and not herself. Her body was a container, and inside, her true spirit had been called forth. She was a thousand tons of cold iron, unstoppable and speeding on rails.

Carana said nothing, but continued to stare open-mouthed as if she had grown a second head. The train official was approaching. "Sir!" Angel called out. Her voice was sure. "How far to Vuko from here?" The man shook his head. Angel repeated the question in Karthic, clumsily. He frowned. Then in English he said. "The station five kilometers. But no stop there tonight. We go to Sirimic."

"I'm getting off," Angel said. Without looking back she strode down the corridor the way they'd come. She could hear Carana calling out to her. All her thoughts had narrowed onto a single point and her motions were strong and elegant. Certainty made her more graceful than she had ever been before. In the cabin, she took only a minute to pack the sleeping bag, hook it in place beneath her backpack and hoist the pack onto her shoulders. Destiny awaited! She was doing this. This was happening. Out in the corridor, she found Carana blocking her way.

"What are you doing; you're out of your mind. You can't get off here. You can't."

"Tell your boyfriend you took his money and left his family behind. Go on. Go back to Prague. But tell him it's okay, because your best friend is gonna do the job without you."

"I'll do that," Carana snapped. "One of us has to go back. That way, when you get yourself killed, I can tell them where to look for the body."

"Good plan."

She was amazed to see Carana's face drawn into lines of actual fear, and suddenly she returned to herself, at least enough to be sorry for calling her friend a coward. They would separate and Carana should not be left worrying about her. "Hey," she said in a tone more like her usual. "I'll be fine. Give me your packet with the documents and money. I'll find the lady's house. It's no problem. I'll be fine, and we'll see you back in Prague." A line from somewhere: _an arrow from the bowstring can't be called back._ It was better this way, she saw. Carana had never really wanted this adventure; it wasn't her style at all. Whereas she, Angel - she could do this; she was made for this. She could do it with both hands tied behind her back. Alone, she'd have no one to look out for except herself. "I shouldn't have dragged you along. It's okay." She grinned, not a carefree grin but a showing of teeth. She was excited and free of doubt. "It's not your thing. It's my thing."

"Sure. A Jean Valjean thing," Carana said. "Always." She still looked dazed, but the force of Angel's certainty was having an effect on her. She pulled the sheaf of papers and cash out of her clothes. Angel slid the packet smoothly into her travel pouch. They stared at each other. They had become different people suddenly. They were strangers to each other. This was where their joint adventure ended and Angel alone followed the call of the trumpets. "Well," said Carana. She appeared to be sleepwalking. She opened her arms and they hugged. Another train official was striding through their car. He held his radio halfway to his ear, and a man's voice was coming over it in staccato bursts, competing with a buzz of static. The official barked something into the radio.

"Excuse me," said Angel. "Five kilometers to Vuko. Is that right? Five kilometers?" 

The official looked at her as if she were an object out of place. "Return to your seat."

"Five kilometers to Vuko?"

"Return to your seat. The train will move soon."

"I'm getting off here," she said loudly.

He stopped and regarded her in a different way, as if just that moment recognizing that she was a human girl. "No one gets off here. Simivic. There is some trouble in the city. It is not safe."

"I understand. I'm going, anyway." The man shrugged. "Will you put the stairs down for me?" He shook his head and said something in his own language and pointed to the door at the end of the car. Angel went the way he indicated and he followed behind her until they reached the end of the car. He opened a panel on the wall and pressed a button. He spoke again, angrily this time, into his radio. Angel wasn't sure he had understood her, but then, to her right, a door opened and steps dropped slowly down from its base like a mechanical creature stretching itself upon waking.

"This train is going to proceed," the official said sternly.

Through the open door came the hot press of natural air. Angel set her face into it. She gave a little hop to hoist her backpack higher. Then she cinched the waiststrap tight and went down the stairs until, four steps later, both her feet were settled in the grass. By the train's lights, she could make out the slope that fell away steeply alongside the track before leveling out about twelve feet below her. There was a narrow cleared space running along the track. Past it was an unbroken line of trees. In the distance she could see a few solitary lights and what looked like a radio tower atop a small hill. That was all. She was outside the train. It was happening. She was making it happen, or letting it happen, and now it was done.

The doors closed behind her.

The train engine hummed louder and snorted metallically, and a rush of exhaust stroked up the backs of her bare legs to her thighs under her shorts. Hastily she clambered down the steep grassy slope, doing a sideways two-step to keep her balance. The pack was not heavy. It contained only a change of clothes, some toiletries, and the sleeping bag lashed to the bottom. The words, _Too late to turn back now_ appeared in her mind. She turned and looked back up the slope as the train roared into motion, striking sparks against the rails. For a long time she stood watching, letting its noise buffet her into thoughtless stupefaction. Finally the shadow of the last car went by her, and the roaring dwindled. The back end of the train became smaller as it moved ahead. Its light winked out of sight. And she standing alone in the middle of nowhere. There were five kilometers of walking ahead of her, and then a job to do. She grinned nervously into the night.

Well. Here she was. Might as well get to it.

She turned and took a step in the direction the train had taken, hoisting her backpack higher. Then something grabbed her sleeve - something human, a human grip - and with a scream of overwrought nerves she jumped away, stomach clenching in terror. Half in a crouch, she whirled back and raised her arms to defend herself. Someone had pursued her off the train. Someone was beside her in this terrible place, and whatever they wanted to do to her, they were probably going to get their way.

"Fuck; sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

She was so terrified that even the harmless words failed to reassure her. The voice seemed disembodied, a trick thrown out by a killer. She saw the speaker's face, pale and peaked in the moonlight, and though she recognized it, it was a still a few moments before the different parts of her brain came together to make sense of what she was seeing. Then her heart began to slow and gradually she dropped her hands and straightened up. "You're out of your fucking mind," Carana said. "But if you're gonna do this, no way I'm letting you do it by yourself."

.

They had been trudging in silence for some time. Every now and then, Angel glanced at her watch. They were keeping to the pocked grass between the track and the trees, and with the packs and their fatigue, she judged their pace to be about two miles per hour. The station should have been a ninety minute hike. Already it had been more than that. Still, her fear had worn off and she was certain they would come around a curve and find the town in front of them. They would have to watch for the riot or the soldiers, or whatever was happening. They would lie low until first light and then find someone to guide them to the woman's home. They could offer money. Angel was working this out in her head. Carana was walking a half-step behind her and Angel had the impression that she was calm and trusting.

"You still okay?" she asked.

"I'm good. How much farther, do you think?"

"Not much. Listen." She stopped. There was a rat-tat off in the distance, then another. Firecrackers, she would have guessed on any other night. A car backfiring. A snare drum being struck, or a book falling off a table. Lots of things could make that sound.

"What is that?"

"It's nothing."

"It's guns. Something's happening. I can't believe we're actually here, going through with this."

"An adventure. It's fine. All according to plan." Cari's nervousness made Angel feel strong and capable. Their position was clear; there were no decisions to be made. They would walk into town. She would take care of Carana. One step at a time. The rat-tat-tat sound repeated. "Don't be afraid," she said firmly. "Let's walk closer to the trees." _So no one sees us_ , she almost added, but kept that part to herself.

"If they're smart," Carana said, "that family is packing their car right now and getting the hell out of town." They had moved to the edge of the woods. The trees were not as thickly spaced as Angel had thought. It would be possible to walk in the forest itself. Or hide there, if they had any reason to hide.

Angel admitted she hadn't considered that. "Well, we have to do our job, anyway," she said. "We've got to do the right thing." She pictured the woman answering her door with bleary eyes. They would tell her, _There's a little trouble but don't worry. We've got money and papers. Come with us._ Or the alternative: running back to Prague to admit to Jiri, _We got scared; we didn't do the job._ If the family disappeared and the minister never saw his kids again, that would be their fault.

Carana said, only a little bit mockingly, "Yes, I know. It's a point of honor."

"Exactly!" Angel said with delight.

They walked on for a ways, Angel alert and wide open, drawing in every clue her eyes and ears could give her. But Carana was increasingly nervous. "So the barricades have fallen," Angel said suddenly. "Valjean drags the wounded Marius into the sewers below ground. Meanwhile the streets are occupied by the king's militia, including his old enemy Javert." She sneaked a look at carana. "Should I go on?"

"Keep talking."

She told the story as they walked. It was an incantation. She was keeping Carana entertained, keeping her mind off worries. The spirit of Jean Valjean would be with them to fend off all danger. As the rounded a turn along the tracks Valjean was plunging into sewer-muck as high as his shoulders, his mighty strength flagging under the weight of the unconscious Marius. Up a small rise, evil Thenardier appeared and mistook Valjean for a grave robber and tore off a corner of Marius's coat, while beyond the sewer grate, Javert in his bloodied uniform patrolled the banks of the Seine.

Carana stopped dead.

"How do we even know what we're walking into? This is stupid. I'm scared to death and I don't want to get shot at. We should stay here until daylight. What time is it? We have no idea what we're doing."

"You want to wait here until sunrise?" Angel was dubious. The idea had occurred to her, but she was not eager to spend a night crouching against the trees, unable to sleep and getting more achy and exhausted by the hour but no closer to their goal. Also, as much as she feared the hidden dangers of the dark, she appreciated the cloak of invisibility it threw over them. With Carana beside her she was not afraid of the dark; at least, not much. She was more worried about what might happen in the city when daylight exposed them. They were not likely to face the usual hassling from aggressive men - since if there was a riot or a fight going on, hitting on a couple of American girls would be a low priority for the locals - but she was worried about the pouch full of cash beneath her t-shirt. In a messed-up situation people might be desperate for money.

"I'm not going any farther," Carana said. "I'm not a fucking nut job."

Angel's calm fled - it was as if the bottom was torn out of her stomach. A terrifying image flashed in her thoughts: herself going on alone, exposed on all sides, while the woods peopled themselves with monsters of her imagination. There were long-armed ghouls among the trees, and grinning men with guns. "Well, we're here now," she said, trying to betray nothing of her terror. "We don't have much choice."

"We can cross the tracks to the other side and wait for the next damn train heading back north to get us out of here."

"I don't think that will work. Trains go a hundred miles an hour. They can't stop for random passengers." Please, Carana. Please.

"Then we can find a road and hitchhike out. Listen. I hear cars." Angel strained her ears. She realized Carana was right. She could make out the rise and fall of cars rushing along a highway, distant but unmistakable. It was coming from their right, beyond the dark line of trees. There must be a road buried there, one they could reach if they pushed into the woods. It was deep enough in the trees that no headlights were visible, but it could not be far.

She did not want to thrash through the trees, or trust a stranger to take them to safety. She had already fine-tuned the plan in her mind so many times that all uncertainty had been ironed out of it. She could picture the city laid out in front of her like the grid of a video game; she could see the streets which would look like Prague's streets, with close-set stone buildings, and she could see the house of the woman which would be made of stone and would have a small walkway leading to three stone steps, and she could see the woman herself, forty years old, answering the door in a green wrap dress with her eyebrows raised, not friendly but not hostile. All these future events were safe and known. Carana's idea was the crazy one.

"You want to take your chances climbing into some guy's car? I think that's way more dangerous than just going into the city. Also, we promised." You go forward; you take one step and then another and eventually everything works out. "Jiri's kids," she said. "They need us. He's back in Prague expecting us to do what we said."

Carana walked to the edge of the tree line, slipped her arms out of her backpack and dropped it to the ground. She sat down on it. "I'm done," she said. "I'm going to wait right here. You can go or stay; whatever you want." In the dark Angel clutched her own abdomen in panic. 

"All right. You wait here." Her mind was racing. Her plans were in shreds. She could not go forward by herself, but neither could she stay still. You had to stay in motion and head toward the goal. You had to keep your mind occupied with plans and expectations and have always the next step to focus on, and the one after that. To sit still was to open your mind to all the fears that lurked in the borderlands. In desperation she heard herself say something she instantly regretted. "You wait, and I'll go into the woods a little ways and find that road. I'll come right back and tell you what it's like. Then we'll figure out what to do." Carana didn't answer. The faded moonlight revealed a blank, set face, either angry or exhausted. "All right?" Angel persisted.

After a moment, Carana said, "All right. Just - hurry back."

And so it was decided; she could not admit her fear or back away from her offer, and so she had no choice now. She must face the trees alone. It was no good hesitating because the thing must be done and if she did it quickly she was less likely to give in to terror. Her heart was beating too fast and her palms were sweating but she would keep that to herself so Carana would not become more frightened. She considered leaving her backpack at Carana's side. That would make for easier going among the trees - but the pack by now seemed to have grown into her body like the shell of a turtle, and she would feel unprotected without it.

Keeping her bearings was the important thing. If she got lost-- well, she wouldn't think about that. She took note of the position of the moon, which hung on the far side of the tracks midway between the horizon and the dome of the sky. She would have the moon at her back when she entered the trees and then would head toward it on the return trip. Looking for the road would not be hard because she would keep her ears open and move toward the sounds of the cars. Coming back to Carana, she would just keep moving until she came out into the clearing by the tracks. The tracks crossed the entire country so they would be impossible to miss. She assured herself that it would be only a short walk. She would just be crossing a strip of trees between railway and road, and no harm would come to her.

 _The woods are lovely, dark and deep._ Except not. They were merely scary. She thrust herself into the trees and within a few steps it was even darker than it had been alongside the tracks, for the moonlight was mostly obscured. However, the trees were not large at all and not as closely packed as she had thought. It was not much of a forest. She could have encircled most of the trunks with her two hands. Underfoot was little vegetation, only a layer of dead leaves that gave way softly under her sneakers. She had gone only a few steps in when she thought she could already hear the sounds of cars becoming louder. She glanced back. Yes, she could make out the silver glow of the moon, partly obscured by the net of branches above her. It was still where she wanted it, at her back. She relaxed a little. This was not so bad. In fact she was safer here than alongside the track. No one would come this way; no one could see her. The trees were a good hiding place.

After another couple minutes, she saw a sudden flash of blinking light in motion. Headlights, she realized, blinking between trees as a car raced by. By their speed, this must be a main road or highway. More cars passed as she ploughed forward. The ground below her was becoming marshy and uneven. She was sinking deeper with each step; she hoped her shoes would not soak through. The trees were now spaced out farther than they had been before, and as they thinned in front of her she could make out more of what lay ahead. She came up suddenly on a low metal railing. Beyond it lay a clearing, with something like crushed rock covering the ground. In the moonlight the road had a fearsome otherworldly look that made her think of it as a path to perdition - but she reminded herself that in daylight it would look like any other road anywhere in the world. It had two lanes on each side with no center divider. To the right it rose gently over a small hill; halfway up the hill was a large metal sign on a post, but because of her angle and the darkness she could not make out any words. She squatted for a moment beside the railing and tried to get her bearings. The city of Vuko would now be to her left. If she and Carana were to flag down a car on this side of the road, it would take them away from the city. Well, maybe that was for the best. She pondered. Other ideas occurred to her. They had money. They could hitch a ride to Simiric or wherever their ride could take them, and from there they would figure out what was happening in Vuko. They could call the number JIri had given Carana, the woman's number, and explain in bad Czech or English who they were and that they had money for her and had come to help her. Carana was right all along. It would be crazy to go into the city with no idea what waited for them up ahead. Thank God for her friend's good sense.

She turned. Everything was settled and she had survived her forest adventure without problems. Carana would be glad to hear the new plan. And now, the task was to put one foot in front of the other, heading toward the moon, until she was back at Carana's side with the train track in front of her.

To keep her mind busy and calm she began counting. Finding the road had taken no more than seven or eight minutes, and she would go faster on the way back now that she was less frightened and more sure of the way. A thousand-count should do it. She would count slow and steady, _one-and, two-and,_ so each number would represent both the left foot and the right foot. Probably she would reach Carana before she hit eight hundred. She would count it off in groups of one hundred so the big goal was broken up into small ones. It was the way you tackled the erg when the coach wanted a five thousand meter piece. Five hundred meters was fifty-six strokes. Repeat times ten. Don't look too far ahead or you'd give up. Above all, never stop.

Two hundred. Three hundred. Four hundred. She must be getting close. Was that the clearing up ahead?

Then, up ahead: voices.

She stopped. A man's voice? Instinctively she found herself dropping into a crouch. But she could not be sure what she was hearing. Could there be voices? She had to know. She cinched her backpack tighter at her waist. No one could see her. She edged closer, though her legs were suddenly trembling. 

Voices, men's voices, several of them. The language sounded Slavic but she understood none of the words. The tone was conversational.

And then a female voice, louder, with a current of fear in it. "No. No. I don't want to." English. Carana's voice. Angel's legs gave out and she sank to the ground, her bladder loosening and a gush of piss flooding between her thighs. Her body knew enough to be terrified and her mind had fled a little ways away to keep watch from the safety of the trees. 

The voices came louder. There was a burst of laughter. 

An unfamiliar shaking had taken hold of Angel's entire body; something large and unseen was rattling her back and forth inside her skin, so that she no longer had possession of herself. Carana's voice: "No!" And then, "Stop that!" And then came a new sound, which was a woman screaming, and when she heard it Angel dropped to the dirt and curled up into a ball, her backpack over her, and tried to press herself down into the soft cover of dead leaves. _You should go to her. You should help her. You should fight them._ But her legs did not work and all she could do was huddle and shake and be small. Carana's scream broke off abruptly and a terrible muffled sound followed, which might or might not have been human, and then there was sobbing and a high, unnatural squeal, almost the jabber of an animal. _"Please -- please -- I have money--"_ , and Angel burrowed down like a small creature of the forest, wishing she could dig a fast hole and huddle below ground. With all her strength she curled smaller and tighter, drawing herself into such a tight ball that she gave herself a tearing pain, a muscle cramp in her right calf. The agony of it was so great she gasped and crammed her knuckles against her mouth. It was so great that it commanded all her attention and protected her somewhat from the noises - grunts and loud words in a thick Slavic tongue, mingling with broken screams from a female throat, which leapt forth then went dead and then split the air again, again, again. Angel put her hands over her ears and pressed as hard as she could but the sounds did not stop.

The men were still talking in big voices but the urgency had gone out of their tone. Carana too could still be heard, whimpering and crying, but the screaming part seemed to be over. Angel's hands had stiffened into shells over her ears. She became aware now of how much she ached from straining herself to maintain the tiny curled-up ball. She let herself relax a fraction; her muscles welcomed the release. She loosened her frozen hands to allow more sound in, so she could monitor what was going on and when it might be safe to rise. Other than that, she did not move.

Soon the men would go away. She would wait right here, forever if she had to, until they had been gone for a good long time and the area was silent. And then she would go to Carana and see-- and see what grotesque thing had been done to her. Maybe there would be blood. She would help Carana up and give her her strength. She would get her friend out of this. They would limp through the strip of woods to the road and they would get out together and make it to a safe place.

A loud explosion sounded suddenly, and she yelped and crammed her hand against her mouth again, her whole body drawing back into a rigid ball like before.

The voices now dropped back into conversation. There was some shuffling, a dragging sound; perhaps the lifting or moving of heavy packs. Then came footsteps which must be those of the men. They were, thankfully, moving not into the trees toward her but away, along the edge of the tracks - away from town in the direction that she and Carana had already come. She tried to picture them walking away so she would know how long to wait until they were out of sight. But then she forgot to control her mind, and for a moment she let her thoughts go to an image of what might be waiting at the edge of the trees - and whether it would look at her like a drained ghost in the moonlight, whether it would open its mouth and speak, or merely lie still with something dark leaking out of it.

She counted to a thousand, very slowly. She could hear no footsteps. She counted to a thousand again. She was soaked from both her own sweat and the moisture that wicked up from the rotting leaves beneath her. Her shorts and underwear were plastered against her skin, and even her socks were wet from the piss that had run down her legs. She closed her eyes and waited until her body was too cramped to hold position any longer and she felt willing to die rather than lie in pain another moment. Cautiously she peered through the branches above her and made out the tinge of dawn. The sky was half-light and it had become easier to see. She raised herself to her knees and then her feet, moving as silently as she could. Her legs, sore as they were, still held her. She did not want to approach the edge of the trees but she could not tolerate the horror of not knowing what lay there. Her feet moved forward automatically. She assured herself that she was a robot, not a human; she was a robot with a nightmare. Some sort of mistake was being made and soon it would end.

The first thing she saw was Carana's left leg ending in her grey sneakers. Her shorts were around her ankles and her black underwear was down there too, in a roll. She would have to help Carana fix up her clothes; then she would feel better and she'd look all right again. She stepped closer. _Robot robot robot. All a nightmare. Nothing real about it._ Carana was face up and her eyes were open but the shine had left them, like beach pebbles lose their shine when taken from the shore. Her t-shirt, which had been yellow, was now blackish. It was pushed up, exposing her bellybutton piercing and the flesh above and below. But her skin was also dark and strange looking, because it was covered with blood. A small flying insect landed near the bellybutton ring. The travel pouch was visible at her side, its leather strap running below the t-shirt and then looping as always around her neck

"You see," Angel said aloud to herself - there was no one to hear, and if there had been she would have welcomed them. Her heart was still beating and that was clearly a mistake. Her idiot heart did not know that it was time to stop. "You see, there are really only a few things that matter. You go around all your life thinking lots of things matter, until one day you get shown the truth. What mostly matters is, you don't get killed alongside some train tracks in a strange country. You don't get your best friend killed. That's really the important thing." And thinking it over she added, "But if it's too late then you still have to do the right thing. You have to get the job done. You have to get the papers and money from your best friend's corpse." She repeated the word "corpse" twice more, rolling it off her tongue, thinking of the Latin, corpus, Corpus Christi. Corpore sanum. Red corpuscles. "You do this," she told herself sternly. "Because you don't have a choice. And because nothing matters anyway."

She advanced mechanically and opened the travel pouch, which was dry leather with nothing on it that shouldnt have been there. She removed the sheaf of papers and the thick envelope containing American dollars. And as the sun rose and morning arrived as it had on the morning before, Angel pulled up the black underwear and the blue denim shorts and pulled the body into the woods. Carana might be a robot - they were all robots - but still she would not like to stare up into the sun with people looking at her. The leaf litter was soft but the earth beneath was firm and she had nothing to dig with except her hands. Soon she gave up and began piling thick heaps of moist, half-rotted leaves atop the body. It was important to shield her face, so she dropped her backpack - she had forgotten she was wearing it - and put her spare t-shirt over Carana's face. Even then she did want to put leaves on the face. So she left Carana as she was, decently covered but able to breathe. There was more rat-a-tat-tat coming from the distance, quite a lot of it, but under the trees the morning was cool and fair.

She touched her travel pouch, which now bulged larger with the addition of Carana's documents and money. Then, keeping the tracks in sight on her left but staying under the cover of the trees, she continued toward the town.


	22. book 2 probably - angel joins karth backstory

Angel, desperate, dead inside. Stumbling up a mountain. Feet bleeding inside boots. She's wearing warm clothes; she has food. (Later we find out where she got them.)

Finally, stumbling into the Kar encampment. Sees boots. Two men. Shout at her. She's terrified. She throws up her hands. They shout at her some more. She half understands - it's a phrase her father used. "What the hell are you doing?" basically. She says, rustily, "I.. I'm looking for Damrat. It's a village. Damrat." Keeps her hands up. The men speak to each other. Then to her. "Who are you? What do want with Damrat?" "I know someone there," she says. Is it close? Who do you know? -- Family Morov, she says. --Don't know them. What do you of hem? -- Please help me, she says. I am Artana Morov. I was caught in the fighting in Vuko. I want to find Damrat." --You'll never reach it. It's the other side of the range. Artana Morov. What were you doing in Vuko? You're not from here. --Do you speak English? she asks. --A bit. You American? --I am from boston but my father was Grigor Stantsel Morov. My mother was Anila Kazi. The words are coming back to her. -Where are they? -Dead. --You alone? --Yes. --What's in your pack? --Clothes, food. --Show us. She doesn't want to. They could be thieves. But she has no choice. And she wants to show goodwill. The men rifle through her pack. The money and papers are on her body. --All right. You come with us. She scrambles to pack up the stuff and follows after them. Notices more about them. Like the fact that they have guns.

They enter a village. There is talk, curiosity. She pulls out her map, wants them to show her where she is. Keeps slipping into Czech by accident. Man shows up, clearly the leader. "This is nevsanek," he says dismissively. You're looking for Damrat? -- Yes. --Because your mother and father are there? --They're dead. That's where they came from. She begins to think she will be repeating that forever. --You were in vuko. When? --I left there...counts on fingers...Three nights ago. --Three nights ago. How did you climb? --I just kept going up. He turns to his friends. "She just kept going up!" Laughter. Turns back to her. --I meant, which route? -I just kept going up, and west. See, on the map. He looks at it. --What did you see in vuko. What do you know? She tells him: trucks, soldiers, shooting. Tanks? he asks. Artillery? She doesn't know the words; he mimes them. She shrugs helplessly. --I don't understand Beztani. They killed my friend. She starts to cry. A woman is called over - it's Jano's wife. 

Angel and wife of Jano strike up a closeness. Later Jano says to her that there's a war on, and that she should get her American ass down the mountain into beztan proper, where there isn't any war, and find a way back to America. He'll have a guide point her in the right direction. She thinks of carana. --do you mean to fight them? he doesn't answer. --I want to fight them, she says. I'm Kar. I can fight. --Girls don't fight. She is sure again. --They killed my friend, I'm Kar like you, and if you're fighting, I'm fighing. Another man speaks up. --She could be a Vescha! There is laughter. Angel doesn't know the word. --How about it. Is she a Vescha? American Vescha! He puts his hand on her and she yanks away. The leader tells him to shut up. The meeting's over. She spends the day trailing after jano's wife, playing with the kid; wife appreciates that. 

The next morning, he says, all right, you wanna fight, you can fight. We'll teach you. He shows her a bomb. --Easy. You good at climbing. We show you where to climb, you put bomb in road and get out. 

She creeps forward, terrified, or maybe cold like a machine. She does the job. Getting back, the men raise their eyebrows. --Good. You be our bomb girl now. But you have to change clothes. You're a vescha now. --What's vescha? --Woman live like a man. Woman who does a man's work, dresses like a man. Understand? No husbands. --A vestal virgin, says Angel to herself. Are there any other vscha here. --No, he smiles. --Old way, There are a few in the villages around here, they are mostly old. No vescha today. But you'll be one if you want to stay. He looks over at the man who leered at her earlier. Someone suggests she might do better as a girl, fool the soldiers, maybe fuck the soldiers to distract them. More laughter. --No, says jano. No fucking. And to Angel - put on the damn clothes. And to the leering man --you touch her and i'll cut your.... off. This is war, no fucking in the bushes. Man protests, but jano repeats --she's going to be our bomb girl. Angel understands she is being given a dangerous job. Jano's wife warns her: you can still go down the mountain. You don't need to do this. Angel sees she is being warned. --They killed my friend. Seven times around the walls of Troy. 

Later, some respect. She is in men's clothes now, they treat her differently. She feels different too. "Bomb girl!" shouts the leering man, admiring her new look. She doesn't smile at him. Jano says, -no longer a bomb girl. Needs a better name. Your father named you Artana? --Means angel, she answered. -- Means female angel. Man angel is different: Gezhor. But that's not a name. Pick one. She thinks. Her father's name? No. Her grandfather's? --Tivor. --Tivor. To his wife he says, --This is tivor, bring him some food. She wants to protest, say she isn't hungry, the wife doesn't have to serve her, maybe she should get her own food - but she understands that more than food is happeneing here. And she is glad to be a man and be protected from the leering looks. The wife serves and she wants to apologize but the wife is not embarrassed; she serves; that's all. And Tivor thanks her. Then the men talk about th next job. --Our bomb girl can place- --I'm Tivor, sh says strongly.

She does two more bomb jobs. They teach her to shoot. She turns out to be good at it, to their surprise and her own. Meanwhile, background talk about fighting, mountain passes. Thunder is coming - the Kar are fighting with the Manzar, and the city of Tamar is under siege. She understands that it is very real and very war and she is Achilles. It is very easy now to be expressionless. No one expects her to smile and giggle and make nice. The men talk to her as an equal. The women serve her. Just that easily, she finally knows what respect feels like.

TAlking to the wife, who tells her about the Vescha, the custom that says women don't inherit, so in the past an only daughter declared for vscha so her mother could keep the property. --And now? --Now she gets married to a cousin and the property stays in the family. If she is too young to marry it's an engagement; the mother runs the property with fiancé to back her up, since it will be his property someday. --Angel doesn't think this is very fair. but whatever. She asks, --you didn't want to be a vescha? --I like being a girl. The men can carry the bombs and guns; i'll carry the cookware. She sees jano and smiles at him. --We seem strange to you? Not like America. --I can see why my father used to yell at me. She remembers him calling her a bad girl. asks, --how did you and jano marry? --I was fifteen; our parents agreed on it. He is wonderful. just then, jano appears. Seeing the two of them together, he frowns and there is a little fear. Then he relaxes. --I thought you were another man talking to my wife. A short man! They all laugh. --but seriously. It's not right you stay here now. You visit when I am here. otherwise, you share the tent with three men. Seeing her face, he adds -- don't worry, they wont bother you. You're not female anymore. And in fact there is great relief in no longer being a target.

Religious rituals. A marriage? Prayer? Make it unclear what the religion is.

A shooting fight. First, a nonspecific prayer. "For God!" , She is stationed back of a rock with two others. "You shoot from back here. Kill any of them you can." He gives extra instruction to tivor: You know what to do? We're going to pull their tail, make them run, then you help kill them when they chase us." She nods. She doesn't feel anything. She's about to shoot people. It's funny how you can get used to anything. It goes well; she feels no fear because she feels nothing. Afterward she is sort of stunned, or empty - but then the men are delighted, backslapping. Someone points out htat Tivor is now blooded and they hoist her on their shoulders and carry her into the village, singing. Camaraderie blooms. Male friendship. She is seeing the fun, the allure of wartime. Need to flesh out the male characters. 

Refugees from Tamar are joining them. Bad stories of the siege. Gray faces. Fury. Helplessness. Anger. Stories of rape and murder by the beztani soldiers. --That's what they did to my friend, she says to Jano one night. --Raped her and shot her. It seems distant, unbelievable. Another life. She doesn't let herself feel it too deeply. --That's what they're like. That's what they've always been like." He tells the story of his own family - pride, hope, crushing defeat, imprisonment after past uprisings. People who disappeared;; people who died in prison. His own father went down the mountain, took a job in vuko. People used to do that more in the old days. Now, there's too much hatred. They hate use and we hate them. But we've got reason."


	23. callahan/cabrese close book2 - another version blah blah

Callahan threw open Cabrese's door. "I want to talk to you," he said. "Off the record, you son of a bitch."

The other man looked up mildly from a journal; no, a golf magazine. He did not seem surprised by the intrusion. "Are you saying you want an EDD?"

"Yeah. Exactly. I want a fucking EDD, right now."

Cabrese retrieved a remote from his desk. "All right." A red light flashed briefly on the ceiling-mounted camera and Cabrese spoke toward it. "James Callahan, employee-driven debriefing, by his direct request made in person to me, one minute ago." Turning to Callahan he said, "What's on your mind?"

Callahan looked at the camera and then at the other man. He had stepped into this. "Fine. I'm miles past caring. I just want answers." Cabrese motioned to the chair but he ignored that. "She ran from those men because it wasn't a diplomatic mission. She figured it out: they were a recon and attack team. You lied to her. You lied to me."

"Is that what she thought? Well, that would explain why she ran off. I'm sorry, Jamie. You did your best for her, but she was deeply damaged. What she went through would make anyone paranoid."

"She wasn't crazy. She was right. I've heard the proof. Now all I want is to hear you admit it."

Cabrese looked him over. Finally he said, "Yes. She was right."

"You don't even have the decency to deny it."

"Would that really be decency?"

"Shut up. How long were you planning it?"

"It was an option from the beginning. It was one of our best options. If you hadn't been emotionally involved with her, it's the one you would have recommended. You can't see that yet?"

"No games." He threw himself into the chair with violence, wanting it to smash, disappointed when it merely groaned. "Tell me this. When did it go from being one of many options to being the plan?"

"About three months ago, when you and Taylor both reported that Simontov wouldn't budge. Your intel said she could guide us in. My job was to get her ready. We had a clear shot at the target and we took it."

"You lied to me for months." He could not tolerate the cool façade of the man across the desk. "What did you think I would do when the mission was over and I learned about it? What? Was I expected to continue working in the company, like nothing had happened?"

"Jamie. There's a side to this that you're too angry to see. I can explain it, but you have to get control of yourself first. Hear me out before you throw everything away." Callahan hesitated. "If you're right, you lose nothing by listening."

He recognized the barbed intention of those words, but too late; he was already fishhooked.

"You've used people," Callahan said. "You've let people die. There's a lot of bones in the ground because you put them there. And because you're a good man you don't sleep so well over that, but you wake up and go back to work and do it all over again; you do your job to keep America safe and strong. Angel was different, you thought, because she was special to you. You think she should have been off limits because of that. But everyone is special to someone, right? And if it's ethical to use someone else's wife or mother or child or best friend, to rip them away from their loved ones and leave a bloody hole behind, then it must be ethical for the same loss to fall on you. Make sense?"

"No. It fucking doesn't."

"Then think about the fact that your hands aren't clean in this. You used her too. You betrayed her first." Cabrese's gaze was unblinking. "The stalker in Boston. You hired him. You dragged her into this."

The words struck his ears. However, he refused to let them in.

"It was brutal, but you did it. You knew just how to terrorize her, and you told him just what to say. And when she still didn't call you, what did you do? Told your man to turn the thumbscrews. Traumatize her. Do whatever it took."

He couldn't speak. But Cabrese kept looking at him; Cabrese who could wait forever. Finally he said, "I wanted to help her."

"Yes. And you were desperate to see her again. And she would help you prove yourself to Quentin. We all have motives. We're all the same shade of guilty."

Callahan looked down and gripped the edge of his chair, because there was a whooshing sound in his ears. From far away he heard, "Are you all right?"

"I need a minute." Finally the world settled around him and he looked up.

Cabrese was watching him kindly. "Better?" He nodded, not meaning it. "As for the company using you, the same rules apply. If you can use other people for America's sake - if you accept that that's ethical - then you have to accept the same treatment yourself. Make the same sacrifice you inflict on others. Otherwise, what are you besides selfish and a hypocrite? Think carefully, Jamie. There's a heap of corpses at Marchev who deserve a straight answer." 

He was inside a complex steel machine. He could see the gears and pulleys, the shining walls that swung open and closed. It was a maze; only Cabrese remained motionless like the North Star. He grasped out blindly. "Something Theresa said once," he muttered. "Don't eat the meat if you aren't willing to slaughter the cow."

"She's right. That's integrity. And if you're going to claim it's ethical to slaughter the cow, you prove it by being willing to stand in the cow's place."

"But if that's true--" He stared, bewildered. "Then what am I - a pawn to you. I do everything you want; seventeen years in. And you people can lie to me at any time for your own agenda."

"No. We're not fiends or sadists. The only agenda here is America's welfare. We fight for it, and sometimes we have to fight dirty. Being a company man means you take on the burden, the risks, the moral ambiguity. You do it so other people can live safe and stay clean. It's what you told me at your CDD: you do the dirty work so Theresa doesn't have to. She gets clean hands. You pay the price."

Theresa. The stark granite counters lay in wait for him behind the front door of the place he called his home. He had developed a ritual of wiping them down each evening, something he had never done when Theresa was home. He'd make them shine and then stare at them with morose satisfaction. "She left me." He laughed. "Couldn't kill the cow, so she declared herself a vegetarian." 

Cabrese's expression softened. He looked sad. "I'm sorry about that, Jamie. I really am."

"Oh, well. Women."

Cabrese sighed. "Think carefully about what you want. You're very good at your job, and you're needed here, and you've sacrificed. We can't stop you from quitting. You can walk out that door and start over with nothing but a red tag. But Quentin wants to reinstate you. You can take that as his apology. And, as sorry as I am to hear about Theresa, being free of her will make things easier for you. You'd get a clean slate and you could pick up right where you left off four years ago. What do you say?"

Was that a job offer - just like that? He gaped. Yet Cabrese was looking at him as if he expected an answer.

"Do I have to decide right now?"

"Will anything be different tomorrow?"

"I don't know." The steel walls had realigned themselves to form a straight path. "All right." He heard himself say the words; they came easily.

"I'm glad. Welcome back. And now, I think we've about covered it." He pointed the remote at the camera. "End EDD." The little red light flashed off. Cabrese set the remote down.

He turned back to Callahan.

The smile was gone.

He said, "You did it, of course. Tipped her off; gave her roofies; told her what to do. There was no fucking snakebite; true or false?"

Callahan froze.

"I guess I have my answer," Cabrese said softly.

A trapdoor. A trapdoor under his feet.

"Treason," said Cabrese. "You betrayed a mission. Men died."

What kind of prison did they give you for treason - white collar or maximum security? Maximum, he'd bet. They'd want to make him suffer. He'd wear an orange jumpsuit; there would be manacles and chains at his ankles and he would never see the sun. They'd give him a company trial, secret, like a court martial. He had heard of such things. How would they cover up his disappearance? They could spread the story that he'd gone abroad. They could spread any story they wanted. Theresa, though, she'd be suspicious; she'd remember Eddie Tsang. He could picture her banging down doors and making threats. But if she ever learned he'd been sent up as a traitor, she'd be disgusted. Or - and wild hope surged in him - would she be proud; would she be the only one who understood? 

"The thing is, though, I don't want to turn you in. I could use my discretion. We could do it like this: You do your torture remediation. Then you take your posting to ambassadorial and serve your country for the rest of your life. I keep you on a short leash, debrief the hell out of you every chance I get. You consent to a lifetime on probation. Understand that if you put one fucking toe out of line I will burn you."

Cabrese's eyes were mild. He nodded toward the door. Callahan looked at it uncertainly. He wondered if it was rigged to blow at his touch. He didn't rise. "Why?" he mumbled. "Why would you do that?"

"You think debriefers are the enemy. But we're on your side; we're your last line of defense when you fuck up. You people just never see it."

"Or maybe," he said slowly. "it's yourself you're protecting. Because what would the bosses do if they learned the truth? That you couldn't get it done. You were her handler and mine too. But both your subjects went off the rails and you never saw it coming."

"Maybe I saw it coming and I just couldn't stop it. And maybe, after twenty years of service, I don't think I should hang for that."

"Or maybe the God-and-country speeches are just crap, and at heart you're a self-serving bastard." He felt a detached curiosity. He merely wanted to know.

"Could be. Or, consider the possibility that your cynicism is misplaced. The system looks rigid but the give is built into the material, due largely to unquenchable human perversions like loyalty, friendship, compassion. That's the fatal flaw in the machinery. That's its greatest strength." He paused. "I'm in a unique position. I've seen and heard everything. I see before me a man with a conscience, and I think that man is an asset, not a traitor. And I'm pretty certain that the company is stronger if it keeps us than if it cannibalizes us in the name of ideological purity." Callahan stared at him. He was trying to puzzle out the truth, which had a certain slither to it. "I can't tell you what to believe. You get to choose."

Cabrese stood up then. He stepped out from behind his desk, extending his hand. He had changed subtly; he was no longer the embodiment of authority. He looked a bit tired and Callahan wondered if he had misjudged his age, because his face seemed lined and almost haggard in the lamplight. There was nothing commanding about him. His suit was plain. He was, it struck Callahan, just another company man. That's what they were - two company men doing a job no one in the world would ever thank them for. They were comrades fighting the same bitter war. Possibly they were both heroes.

Cabrese said quietly, "How is she?"

He could see her ragged figure on the hillside, her cropped hair shoved back roughly by the wind, the heaves of wild grass shifting colors as evening shadow claimed the land. The memory hurt. "She's not coming back."

"No."

It was how it was. That's what Cabrese was saying.

He wondered where he'd get posted. He was fairly certain it would never be Beztan. "So. You and me, then. Start of a beautiful relationship."

The debriefer laughed. "I thought of that myself. She chose Victor Laszlo. We couldn't stop her. Amazing." He shook his head. "But what about you? Should I be worried about you, going home to an empty house?"

The counters could be ripped out. He could gut the whole damn house. He could move away. But there were other possibilities, weren't there? There was a world of possibilities, and he should have seen that earlier. "I got ambassadorial back," he said with a grin. "Hell, it only took me four years of daily grinding misery. Theresa's got to be easier to crack. I just have to make her see reason."

Cabrese gripped his hand warmly. "Good luck with that, my friend." 


	24. callahan/theresa stuff

........................................ 

"Do you think they would have taken one of us without the other?" she asked suddenly. "If you had said no to the recruiter, would they have still wanted me? Imagine. Imagine if neither of us had ever gotten into it. Never knew what we know. We could have just been career foreign service. We could have lived and died in ignorance." 

"I don't know." The question annoyed him; it was stupid to think that way. "We can't go back and change things." 

The shock of finding out about her was something he'd never forget. He had agreed to sign on; had an appointment with Quentin in the morning, and in a final gesture to pay off his conscience, he'd taken Theresa to Baltimore, where they ate at her favorite crab place and then rented a paddle-boat at the Inner Harbor. The water had an oily sheen and they let themselves drift for a while, holding hands and watching jellyfish pump inefficiently beneath their keel. The harbor bottom was invisible; he got the willies thinking about how deep down it was and what might be concealed there. To distract himself, he did an imitation of the Senegalese prime minister, which made her laugh so hard he grabbed her by the sweatshirt to make sure she didn't fall overboard. "We're a floating island," she said, turning to survey the Domino's sign and the lights along the dock, the red-lit glass elevators sweeping up and down the Hilton. "I'm closer to you than anyone I've ever known. I can tell you anything." 

And he had thought of Quentin and the years of deception he was about to perpetrate on her. "Me too," he lied. 

The next morning, in Quentin's office: there were two chairs set up before his desk, and one already occupied. Theresa turned. She had her hair pinned back over one ear with a clip he'd given her for their first anniversary. She froze, her eyes wide so that the whites were unnaturally huge. He gaped at her. "What--?" He remmebered them as staying motionless for minutes, a frozen tableau of horror. Or comedy. 

Quentin had smiled and sat back in his chair. He said, "We always do it this way when we take a couple. It's entertaining. Mr. Bond, meet Mrs. Bond."

That night, in the queen-sized bed in the duplex with the hum of traffic reaching them through the poplars, they had both been quiet. Finally Theresa had kissed him. "So how does it feel? Knowing you married a stone liar."

"Exciting," he had said. And with more honesty he added, "Dangerous." And they clasped each other, and a current ran between them, convulsing his hands and drawing his body around hers. He realized he could never let go now, even if he wanted to.

................ 

He'd wanted it, of course - like any kid who grew up watching too many movies. "You won't be James Bond," Quentin warned. "You won't ever rise to the top, either - you'll never be an ambassador or charge d'affairs. Those people have to be on the level. You'll be stuck in the middle tier, and most of the time you'll do what you're already doing, what everyone else in Political does. But once in a while, you'll see an opportunity to develop a relationship with a counterpart. Or you'll get access to privileged documents. Occasionally we'll give you a direct assignment, but most of the time you'll just steer by feel. You're good at winning people over. That's why we want you."

xxxxxxxxxxxx Corinne was there with her hair dark and long the way she used to wear it before it went gray. Roger the recruiter was standing by her reception desk, looking strangely over-excited like a kid with a secret. "Quentin's waiting for you," he said, and led the way inside the office. 

Ten days later he returned to C32 to sign his contract. He stepped off the elevator more nervous than he'd been at his wedding, and 

Training had been brutal - not the tradecraft, which he loved best, but the physical skills: shooting, climbing, fighting, and the mental ones, like controlling your panic during interrogation. "We hope you'll never need to use what we teach you," the instructors said, "but we can't let you enter the field unprepared." There was a phrase, _no anger, no fear_ which was linked to a series of meditation exercises he and the others got drilled on repeatedly. The idea was, you recalled that phrase when you were under duress and it invoked a state of calm. He had his doubts. At the end of each day he returned exhausted and fell down in front of the TV. Theresa, whose training was separate, was unruffled by it all. If anything, she seemed energized. He assumed that Admin recruits didn't learn to fight; maybe she was learning computer wizardry while he was scaling fifteen-foot walls. He tried asking her, but she shook her head. "The need-to-know principle," she said, smiling. And he groaned and bit her on the neck, half meaning it.


	25. snippet of angel/cari on the train.  cari worried

"We're doing it," said Carana. Angel barely nodded. They had watched the sun set an hour ago as they crossed Romania; tongues of red spitting between the rough Mangarel peaks. Now she could see nothing out the window but she stared anyway, hypnotized by the shadows of flying forest against night sky, skin prickling, loving the rising thrill. There was no need to speak. The train thrummed all around them. It was a fierce form of conveyance, a thousand tons of iron spearing the night. Every now and then a cluster of lights marked a village in the distance. There were so many little towns they were leaving behind them; so many people sleeping, going nowhere, unaware of all the adventure that could be theirs for the grabbing. She grinned at Carana. They were riding into darkness. They were together. 

It was too bad that Carana was not enjoying herself as much as Angel had hoped. She bothered herself over niggling details, like where would they sleep in town and what would they do if the woman, Anna, refused to come back with them. Carana had purchased a Beztan guidebook at the Traveler's Bookstore on Narodni Ulice, and had been reading parts of it aloud. "Vuko, known as the Jewel of the North, is one of Beztan's oldest cities. Settled first by the Manzari, a Slavic people who migrated thousands of years ago from the environs of the Black Sea, Vuko is also the gateway to the scenic Kar-Paval mountains. Downtown, the Provincial Museum contains a world-renowned archaeological collection. Travelers will also enjoy shopping the boutiques of the historic riverside district, and taking daytrips to the quaint Manzari villages in the hilly north, which are famous for colorful weaving techniques and a distinctive cuisine." 

Now she looked up from the book. "Where are we, do you think? How much longer?" 

"We'll cross the border in two hours and pull into Vuko station at three in the morning. It's only 9:30 now. Once we arrive, it won't be more than a mile's walk into town." 

"At three A.M? Let's not go wandering until morning comes and we can see what we're doing. We should have taken a later train." 

"No, this is perfect. " .

"What if we don't find them? What if they're away on vacation; then what?" Carana's nerves, she saw, were strung tight. So were her own. But whereas she was alert and confident, Carana was just plain worried. 

"If that happens, we'll figure it out. We'll be fine." Her friend's worries made her feel strong and protective. They were gunning into Vuko at a fast gallop, banners flying. They were young and invincible and whatever came, they would take it in stride. 

"We should pull the seats together and sleep while we can," she said. "Pretty soon it will all be happening." Just what would be happening remained a question. But that was the way of adventures. You took a step into the unknown; the door slammed shut behind you; and after that you had no choice but to keep moving. Eventually things worked out and you came out on the other side. 

She pulled out all six seats into their reclined position so they made two long beds, as good as a night in a hotel. Carana pulled a sweatshirt out of her backpack and bundled it up as a pillow. "I hope I can sleep. This whole thing still seems crazy."


	26. on the train.  Angel leaves, carana stays.

Night train, so we can sleep on it. Eurail pass.. The pull the seats together and stretch out. She gets out the map, studies it. "From the station, it's no more than a mile to their house. They live beside a green spot. "Orlovsk Plezhan" - maybe Orlovsk Park? Carana bends her head to study it alongside her. "I thought you spoke the language." "Mountain dialect. It's like in Italy, no one understands Neapolitan." Later, Angel tells how she lost her luggage between venice and Nuremburg, and carana's peals of lovely laughter are perfect. No more minister, no more nothing. Bu then it changes. Once again Carana is flirting with every guy, same as always.

Angel comes back from the train bathroom, and carana is no longer alone. Two guys, falling all over her. She's furious. But she puts on a smile because that's what you do. The boys are both into carana, of course; everyone's into carana. the sidekick though, he quickly transfers his attention to Angel. He knows his place, that one. She musters up some enthusiasm and plays her role for a bit; he's funny, he knows boston, on another day she would be into him but right now she's got a knife in her gut because all she wants is for these guys to disappear. Carana notices, and shoos the boys away. "You didn't like them," she said. "I thought mine was cuter, but yours was more interesting. Hey, come on. You're angry? What? He said something?" "It'sn otthat," Angel said tightly. "It's nothing. Just tired. Go on, go chase your boy toy. God knows who your minister is fucking tonight." Carana recoils as if slapped. "Ouch," she mutters. "That was uncalled for." "Oh, sorry. I just meant, you know - it's not like he has a history of fidelity or like you guys are married. You might as well have fun. You don't owe him anything." Carana still looks resentful. Angel is afraid she has gone too far. She changes the subject.

Then the train stops outside Vuko, there's artillery fire, confusion, excitement. Carana is lurching against one of the guys she just met, ready to ditch the promise to her lover. Angel erupts in jealous anger. Carana stays on the train, wanting to stay safe. 

Yhey are woken by sounds, shouting. Thumping on the door. "Misses? English? This train not to stop in Vuko. There is trouble in the town. Some shootings. The train conductor says, better not to get off, better to go on to the next stop, city called, whatever. 

Angel and carana look at each other. Carana wants to keep going to the next stop, return to prague, explain it didn't work out. 

"Train's not moving. Are we at the station?" 

There's banging on the door. The train official explains it to them. Carana, gray, says "fuck. All right. Well, this is fucked. So we go on to the next stop. We call the lady from there, tell her we've got money and papers for her, we tell her about the apartment, tell her she just needs to drive to prague. Then we catch a train back to prague and give it to her there." 

Angel, still jealous, is furious. That would be the plan Carana would come up with. "Got a better idea," she says tightly. "Give me the money and the papers and I'll take care of it." Carana is confused. "Come on. Right now. Hand it over." Carana does. Angel peels off a generous chunk of bills. "There. That'll pay your way back if you have problems. You go on. Go back to your boyfriend, tell him you ditched the job and left his family to die in a war zone. I'm sure he'll be thrilled. But you tell him it's okay, because your friend is taking care of everything for you." 

"That's insane. You're not going. You're coming with me; we're both getting out of here." 

"Gave my word. Took a job. Gonna get it done." 

Carana, astounded. "That family? If there's shooting in the street, then they're packing their car right now. They're not even home. They're friving for the fuc king border, gonna go to Prague or wherever else is safe. You're not gonna find them." 

Angel: "You dont' know that. And you may be a coward, but I'm not. Goodbye. See you in Prague." She grabs a passing official. "Sir? How far to the town?" 

"Five miles, miss. But we are not stopping there" 

"You're actually gonna do this. You stupid girl. This isn't a game. It's war." 

"We don't know whati t is. A riot maybe. Anyway, it's just starting. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna do what I said I'd do." 

Carana. "Well good, cause, I'll be alive to explain to your mother why you're coming hom in a body bag. I think she'll want to know." 

"No mother," said Angel. "No father. Free agent." 

"Well I'm not!" 

Angel, melting toward her friend. Bites her lip. "Thats'why you shouldn't get off here. People would miss you if anything happened." She feels love again, realizes it's true. Carana has parents. HERE - SHE STAYS ANGRY? OR FEELS LOVE? OR A MIX? OR RISING EXCITEMENT? OR JUST PLAIN DESPERATE TERROR - what has she volunteered for?" "I don't want anything to happen to you. Stay safe. We'll meet back in the apartment. " Her anger is gone, and a kind of excitement is coursing through her. This is her job after all - she is valjean. "If i'm late getting back, you tell worldteach what happened. Tell them I'm on my way." She bites her lip again, thinking of all the reasons she might be late coming back. 

Carana, sort of horror-struck, hugs her goodbye.


	27. angel and caran on the train

In the long, heady moments before the train doors closed, Angel was standing barefoot in the narrow corridor. She had ditched her sandals along with her backpack and Carana's, in a booth halfway up the car. Through the ribbed metal floor she could feel the vibrations sing. She could feel the train's power and strength massing around her. Soon the doors would close, the engine would fire and they would grind into motion, faster and faster, a beast and its jockey thrusting toward destiny. All the charged world was singing through her and she stood at the center of everything, a frayed wire burning hot and shooting sparks. She was wild and young and invincible - her best self; her self set free - and the glory and energy of the world was lighting her up along every nerve. 

She felt for the pouch under her shirt. She checked her watch. Then she shot a look up the car at Carana. Her friend was standing guard outside their booth. Carana had the Arbeztan travel guide open in her hand and was studying it intently - or pretending to - head bent, hair tied back in a chaotic bun that revealed the arch of her long neck. She was leaning back against the booth's accordion door, forcing a steady stream of passengers to bump past her in annoyance. 

She wanted Carana to think of her and look up. This was their moment; the hand of destiny was on them. But Carana had eyes only for the guidebook. 

Angel turned back to the open door of the train. Outside, past the platform and over the skyline hung the deepening bronze dome of the evening sky where a storm-to-be was stealthily gathering ions. Black clouds bloomed like wet roses, and by their weighted glower Angel guessed it wouldn't be long before scissors of lightning would slash down over Prague's rooftops and gold-lit spires, throwing a strobe of bright-on-dark over the Vltava and the shadowed bridges. She was a little sorry she'd be missing it - but then she thought of what lay ahead, down the tracks, and felt a hot shiver of delight. A tired-looking woman clambered aboard, and when their eyes met, Angel couldn't help grinning at her. 

Next to board was a family with three children and luggage on wheels. Angel watched them struggle down the corridor. The woman glanced at Carana irritably, then at the booth behind her, before pushing on. She had a tweedy suit on which made a grim counterpoint to Carana's gauzy blue dress, one she had bought from a vendor near the bridge last week. The woman's suitcase bulged weightily and her pocketbook had slid off her shoulder to knock awkwardly against her leg, and she hurled aggressive orders after the caroming children. Watching her made Angel feel light and superior. Suitcases were stupid. A decent backpack and a little money was all anyone needed. That, and a best friend who you loved with all your heart. 

Carana had been quiet ever since they left their apartment - even before, to tell the truth. Usually she was witty and adorable and could always be counted on to say the outrageous thing that made everyone laugh and fall in love with her. On Saturday when she returned from meeting Jiri, she put the papers on the table and stood silently beside Angel, who leafed through them slowly, feeling the heavy portent of them; the girls had looked at each other but neither of them had spoken. Earlier today, while they packed hastily and took their last look around before locking up, it was clear Carana was holding back her thoughts. On any other day, Angel would have been the good friend who listened and was loyal. But not today. As they went out of the apartment, Carana had done something disturbing - she'd paused in the doorway to caress the ancient chipped molding with a sweep of her arm, so that her manicured fingernails grazed over the painted wood. It was a strange gesture - superstitious, thought Angel. Or regretful. 

Well, it was too late for regrets. After Carana had touched the molding in that odd way, Angel followed her out into the hall and turned back to lock the door behind them. She'd felt a safe rush of relief as she pocketed the key: a line crossed, the way back sealed. 

The floor hummed louder now and a machine-smell crept into the recirculated air. The stream of boarding passengers had died down and the aisle was mostly empty. A little blond girl kept poking her head out of one of the other booths, eyes round and owlish, and at the far end of their car a blue-uniformed official stomped in, standing with his feet spread and his hands clasped behind his back. 

Then came a jolt. A series of mechanical bangs and snorts followed, and the floor trembled, and the doors at both the front of their car, and at its rear, slammed shut. A surge of electric heat ran up from the naked soles of Angel's feet into the torn-open center of her chest, making her gasp. She turned again to Carana. And, wonderfully, Carana at that moment lowered the guidebook and turned to her, and Angel strode up the corridor to her friend's side and they both reached out and grabbed each other's hands and hung on. 

"We're on our way," Carana murmured, and Angel felt as if her insides were all aflame and the flame was shining out through her eyes. She grinned widely, her lips drawn back by sheer excitement. In her chest was a squeezing breathlessness, like a giant fist closing over her heart. The train lurched and spat. She felt porous, as if air and light could pass through her and the wild wind was humming through her bones. 

They dropped each other's hands. The breathless thrill settled a little, although Angel still felt lit from within with joy and power. They went into their booth together - all theirs, since Cari had successfully defended the free seats against interlopers. Angel sat and brushed the grit off the soles of her feet and put her sandals back on. The she pulled out her sleeping bag and toiletries. She hoisted her borrowed pack onto the metal shelf above. It was light compared to what she was used to. The serious pack that she'd bought in Boston last June with the last of her inheritance money was currently en route to Rome with one of the other WorldTeach staffers. She missed it, remembering how it had kept her company last summer in a hundred unpromising locations: it had been her pillow when she slept on the ground under bridges and in cheap dives and on the sofas of strange men. In exchange she'd borrowed a smaller backpack which was perfect for a one-week trip in civilizaiton. All she'd packed besides the sleeping bag were a change of clothes and her well-worn sneakers in a plastic bag. Her sandals were comfortable - but sandals were only good until you got into trouble. And she prided herself on being ever prepared for trouble. 

"Better put your pack up on the shelf like I did," she advised. "Makes it harder for anyone to go through our stuff if we step out to the bathroom or something. Learned that the hard way last summer." 

She lifted her hand to her shirt for possibly the fifteenth time that day. The pouch was still there. 

"I keep thinking," said Carana, "how bad Jason's gonna kill us if we're not back for next Monday's clients." 

"We have eight days. C'mon - that's enough time to _conquer_ Arbeztan if we wanted to." But Carana was too nervous to laugh. Angel was irritated; this was a joint spree and she wanted Carana to be elated the way she was. But of course she had known Carana wasn't exactly like her. She just needed some reassurance. "Hey. Monday morning we'll wake up in the apartment. You'll be stealing my shampoo, same as always, and then we'll be tutoring English to the hopeless and you'll wish spring break had never ended." 

They were both quiet a minute. 

"Did you lock up?" Carana asked suddenly. 

"Of course." 

"You have the money? The papers?" 

"Don't be an idiot." She laughed. Her laugh came out a little too high-pitched. "Yes. I have everything." But her hand came up to touch the pouch again. 

"I'm trying not to worry." 

"Don't worry." 

"I know. I'm trying." 

Only two nights earlier, Angel had crept across their bedroom in the dark. Had put her hand on Carana's blanket where she imagined her shoulder must be. Her roommate had groaned and sighed but Angel had persisted, shaking her until she roused and jerked away. "Oh, Jeez, Ange. What the hell?" 

"Are you awake?" Carana had mumbled a noise, and in the dark Angel could smell the alcohol she'd soaked herself in earlier that evening, and cigarette smoke that must have come from whatever rich-man's club Jiri had taken her to. 

"I've been lying here thinking. And I think we should do it," she said. 

"Mmm. Do what?" 

"What you were talking about before you fell asleep. Jiri's idea. Let's do it." 

"Are you kidding me?" Carana was more awake now. She raised her head from the pillow. Her face was blacked out by the darkness but the silhouette of her cascading mane was outlined by the soft light from the window. 

"It's the right thing to do. It's an adventure." 

"You're serious? There's no way. It's insane." 

She gripped Carana's shoulder. She was very sure of herself. She never asked Carana for much, but on this one thing, she would not back down. "You and me," she said urgently. "It's a matter of honor. A test of courage. An offer we can't refuse." 

"It's stupid and crazy and I don't want to." 

And then Angel had said with true and calculating precision, "If you don't do it, Jiri will never forgive you." 

Now the train streaked on. They had left Prague behind, and rugged countryside now appeared. It looked gothically gloomy under the darkening sky. Angel turned to Carana again. "I'm so glad we're doing this. It's the best adventure ever." 

"We may be crazy," Carana answered. 

"Definitely we are. But it's Rule Three, so we're good."

"What?" 

"Rule Three." Carana looked blank and Angel, for just a moment, felt stung. "Don't tell me you've forgotten." 

"Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about." 

That was maybe the one bad thing about Carana. The crystalline moments of joy that sealed their friendship - the rapid-fire conversations, their bouts of laughter so helpless they peed themselves, the confessions they whispered, the nights they stayed up talking until dawn - didn't always stay in Carana's memory. Maybe they left a shallower mark on her than they did on Angel, who treasured them. Angel had been hurt by it in the beginning but had taught herself to shrug it off. "I explained this to you back in the fall, after that big party at Jason's. Rule Three. It's, like, the guiding principle of my existence." 

"Oh no," Carana grinned. "Now I'm scared. But tell me again." 

Angel drew herself up like a lecturer at the podium. "Rule Three: Whenever you can't decide what to do, do the brave thing. Because that way, no matter how bad things turn out, afterwards you can always say, "Well I was an idiot and I fucked everything up - but it's okay because, at least I wasn't a coward."

" _That's_ the guiding principle of your existence?" Carana screwed up her face, squinting at her through one dubious eye. 

"Hell yes. And it's served me well since forever." 

"That explains a lot." 

"Fuck you. It's brilliant." She grinned. Carana's teasing always made her happy. 

"Okay, so if that's Rule Three, what are One and Two?" 

"Ah. Those ones are harder. You want to know?"

"Yeah. Tell me." 

"You sure? 'Cause, I don't wanna waste my wisdom on scoffers." 

"Seriously." And, in fact, she did look serious now. "I'm trying to guess, but my imagination fails me." 

Angel sighed happily and settled herself against the seat. "Rule One is, do the right thing. And Rule Two is, do the smart thing." 

Carana considered. "We should have gone with Rule Two. Then we wouldn't be here. We'd be at home, sleeping." 

"Well, that's the problem. Rules One and Two are really only good in retrospect. Generally, you never know what the right thing or the smart thing is until it's too late. That's why Rule Three is the fallback - it's the one that makes your tough decisions for you, when you're all in a quandary."

"I don't know why the brave thing should be any clearer than the others."

"Easy. Whatever's hardest, whatever scares you most - that's the brave thing." She added, "That's why I had to sleep with Corbin that time. I knew he was a shithead and he was probably going to go back to Ellie and I was going to get my feelings hurt. But he was such a god. So I kept thinking, should I play it safe? Is that smart or am I just being a chicken? And I couldn't decide, and I kept going back and forth. So finally I was like, okay: Rule Three, baby."

"Well, yeah - and look how well that worked out." 

"Hey now. He was a god. He hung me upside-down like I was a sack of-- something that comes in sacks. I have beautiful memories." 

" _He_ was a sack of shit. And the only beautiful memory I'm coming up with is you crying for a solid week, while I covered your clients because you couldn't get out of bed." 

"Well, there you go," she said grandly. "And what's my defense? 'I was an idiot and I fucked everything up, but at least I wasn't a coward.' " She hugged her knees. This was what she loved - just talking to Carana, who listened and understood, or laughed at her, or argued with her, but who always loved her all the way to the bone. "See? Rule Three. Works like magic." 

"You're a nut," said Carana fondly. She picked up the Arbeztan guidebook again. Angel gazed out the window, smiling to herself. Her high mood was settling a little. They should sleep soon. It would be a long night; they would hit Vuro at three in the morning, and at first light they should go looking for Vosteyn Street. 

"Hey," said Carana after a while. "Listen to this part." She read from the guidebook. "Vuro, known as the Jewel of the North, is one of Arbeztan's oldest cities. Settled first by the Manzari, a Slavic people who migrated thousands of years ago from the environs of the Black Sea, Vuro is also the gateway to the scenic Kar-Paval mountains. Downtown, the Provincial Museum contains a world-renowned archaeological collection. Travelers will also enjoy shopping the boutiques of the historic riverside district, and taking daytrips to the quaint Manzari villages in the hilly north, which are famous for colorful weaving techniques and a distinctive cuisine." 

"I don't know if we'll have time for weaving and cuisine," Angel said. "Business first." But she was glad to see Carana getting excited. 

"No, I mean the part about the Kar-Paval mountains. Your dad's place, right? Vuro's the gateway. Maybe he was from there." 

"Hell, no; are you kidding? You're insulting my blood. We're Karth, for chrissake: mountain people. I was raised to curse the despicable cowards of the lowlands. The _dzhoma-dzhira_ , my dad used to call them." Her father always spat the word, slamming a meaty hand against the table and making plates jump and crash. He was usually drunk at times like that. _"Dzhoma-dzhira"_ means "flat-footer" in Karthic. It's probably an ethnic slur and something the lowlanders will kill you for saying to their face. If you want, you could dig up my dad and ask him all about it; he'd talk your ear off about the old days, and how everyone always tries to kill the Karth and take the mountains from them and disrespect their culture, blah blah blah." 

"You're horrible." Carana looked at her hesitantly. "You must miss him. You pretend not to, but you must, at least a little. Right?" 

"Huh. You would think that." 

She did miss her father, actually. Just not the way Carana imagined missing hers. Carana came from the kind of family that ate dinner together and told funny stories where everyone joined in on the punchline. They put up a tree every Christmas - Angel had seen the photos - with fading paper ornaments Carana and her brother had made by hand in grade school. It was a family with cousins and reunions; there was a midsummer barbecue where her dad and uncle cleared the table for their traditional arm-wrestle that recalled sibling rivalry of long ago, now empty of venom and transformed into a show for the younger generation. Carana's little brother was a lacrosse star at his Boise high school and her mother grew tomatoes in the back yard. Angel could picture Carana there as a little girl. She could picture herself visiting Boise next year and meeting the famous Silvestri family, being enfolded by them and becoming another daughter. 

If Carana's father died, it would be a tragedy, the way tragedies looked in the movies. Whereas for Angel her dad's death had just confused her because it made her doubt reality from moment to moment, so she had kept pulling the funeral-home notice out of her pocket in class to establish that she was sane. It had left her angry but with no one to be angry at. It had given her four thousand, three hundred dollars, and it had taken her only living relative and cut her free of all ties to the world - a helium balloon, desperate and beyond help, pulling upward alone into thinning air it could not survive. Except now she had Carana. Who was all she needed. 

Carana's face suggested disapproval - that she was a bad daughter with a shriveled ungrateful heart. She rushed to redeem herself. "I miss him," she allowed. "And I know what you're thinking. He raised me alone and it wasn't easy. He did his best. That's what I'm supposed to say." 

In fact, since her father's death, her anger at him had softened. She had begun to think of him as a tragic hero: a hard man, but only because he had lost his home country and all his family. She liked to think of his mountain origins - a wild, proud land where men were noble, and staked their lives on concepts like honor and vengeance. She approved of mountain tribes who fought losing battles to defend their land. When people asked her where she got her dark curls, she didn't say, "My parents are from Arbeztan" - a country that people had at least vaguely heard of. She said, "We're Karth," without explaining further. It was a matter of pride to her that she was descended from a select bloodline of angry uncompromising savages, throwbacks to a wilder and more romantic age. 

"What was your mom like?" Carana asked. 

Angel lied. "I don't remember her." 

"Well, I talked to mine last night." Carana looked down sheepishly. "I wanted to call. To tell her I love her, and all that. You know I'm all about the melodrama."

"It'll be all right," Angel answered. "It'll be amazing. You'll see."

She didn't want to talk any more about families, so she suggested they try to sleep. They pulled out the six seats, three on each side, making the booth into two cozy beds. That's why she'd wanted to guard the booth so they'd get it all to themselves. After last summer, she considered herself an old hand at making do, and the best thing about a night train was that you got a place to lay your head until sunrise. You didn't have to wind up under an overpass on the edge of town where local cops would shake you awake some time later, yelling and pointing furiously down the empty road. 

She and Carana would need any sleep they could grab tonight. The train would hit Vuro at three in the morning. Angel had already decided that they should set out for Vostyen Street as soon as it was light enough to read the street signs. 

She spread her sleeping bag over herself. Carana, who didn't own a sleeping bag, pulled out her orange sundress to use as a blanket, and a gray sweatshirt for a pillow, then clicked off the overhead light. In the dark, the sounds of the train were louder.

Some time later, Angel awoke. The first thing she did was check on Carana. But the other makeshift bed was empty. Where Carana had been, she could make out the orange tangle of the sundress-blanket, and the sweatshirt was a bunched heap with one empty sleeve trailing to the floor. 

She pulled on her sandals and stumbled out into the silent passageway. 

The overhead lights were dim and there was no noise but the ceaseless thrumming of the train. She pushed open the door at the end of the car and she stepped out onto the connection plate. The heat of the night surprised her and stirred her excitement. They had come south and were in a strange land. Prague and everything they knew were hundreds of miles behind. 

The next car was also dim and quiet with no one in the corridor and all the cabin doors pulled shut. 

Next she pushed through the door into the café car. It was lit by a few pale bulbs overhead, the long low counter unmanned at this hour. A single booth was occupied, and the yellow light showed Carana's profile, her easy movements, her hair feathering back over her shoulder. She was laughing. Across the table were two boys, leaning towards her with eager expressions. 

"And then," Carana was saying, "the police showed up, shouting in Czech, and the three guys grabbed the cards and the money and--" 

Carana tossed her head in the showy way she used when there were conquests to be made. (long description of the boys, leaning toward Carana, trying to edge each other out for her attention; and her, loving it. Angel feeling left out and abandoned like a shucked skin, like second-best. She withdraws into the shadows. She thinks, maybe, of Idaho and wanting a family. She thinks of joining the trio but in the end - with a familiar knife was twisting in her belly - she turns to go.) 

She slipped back into the booth, back into the sleeping bag, and ducked her head down so its warmth cocooned her. She was still awake when Carana returned fifteen minutes later, but she kept her head buried, and Carana tiptoed and lay herself down in a carefully quiet way. Angel could hear her pulling the orange sundress over herself. The train rolled on. 

The next time she woke, something seemed wrong. Her body was pressed against the seatbacks. A high mechanical whine was slicing through the metal walls as if the train were crying out in pain. It took her a moment to understand: they were decelerating hard. Carana groaned. Sleepily she said, "What's going on?" 

The noise dropped to a moan, then went silent as the train ground to a stop. She heard a commotion in the corridor. A man was speaking in a loud, excited voice in a foreign language. It sounded Slavic but she couldn't figure out a word. Up and down the car, she heard doors open and people calling to each other. A child was crying. She checked her watch. It was nearly three. 

"Cari, get up," she said. "It's three. This must be Vuro." 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, She and Cari were heading east. They were heroes out of legend: best friends and bound for parts barely-known, with a job to do and trumpets blowing in the distance. She wanted the train to fire up fast and start them barrelling forward. But at twenty-three she had, just recently, grown an understanding that time moves in only one direction and leaves the past wrecked and colorless in its wake. As much as she wanted to rush headlong into Arbeztan, she didn't want to let go of this: the breath-holding anticipation, the wanting and exhilaration that might never come again and that had her wildly alive and on edge, ready to leap. 

"Here there by tygers," she whispered, just because she loved the sound of it. 

Arbeztan, her destination, had been her father's country, and from the way he talked, it was the kind of place that descriptor had been invented for. It wasn't like Europe proper, where everyone you met had already left footprints in and had stories to tell. She herself had spent the last summer burning up her inheritance on the road before her WorldTeach orientation started. She'd been lost in France and Germany and in trouble somewhere north of Amersterdam and in other places she couldn't name anymore. But Arbeztan was past the edge of the mapped world. Only two trains a week left Prague's station for the southeast journey. When they stepped off at their station, they'd be in terra incognita with only the rough beginnings of a plan. They'd get into Vuro in the dark. They'd scope out the situation. They'd make up their next step on the fly. 

If she said anything nasty in Czech, Carana would be immune as a deaf woman. After eight months teaching English in Prague, she still could barely order a beer. 

"I suck at languages, but don't tell the boss," she had admitted on day one of orientation. They'd found their way to the Old Town Square and had staked out a table in one of the cafes, watching the crowd gather before the clock as it prepared to chime the hour. They were trading stories of how they'd ended up at WorldTeach, and soon they were both laughing helplessly with the thrill of shared criminality, since it turned out that _both_ of them had lied shamelessly on their applications. Carana claimed an abiding passion for Slavic languages. Angel had dragged her immigrant father into things and written that she wanted to bring understanding to the people of the world. Or whatever. 

They thumped down the stone staircase together, four flights of stairs their steps heavy because of their jouncing backpacks, their sandals striking hollow echoes from the close-set walls. They walked to the Metro stop two blocks away and rode the trolley side by side, but Carana remained withdrawn and Angel avoided looking directly at her. She was afraid that if she looked at Carana, her friend would say, "Let's not. This is crazy." And she could not tolerate that. Bad enough that at the great moment of their setting-out, Carana did not mirror Angel's ecstasy. This made Angel a little resentful. In myths and old stories, friends felt their comradeship most hotly as they prepared to face danger and adventure. 

She told herself that it wasn't Cari's fault she was nervous. She swelled a little in her chest, feeling big beside Carana even though her friend topped her by three inches. On this trip, she meant to take care of everything. She was better at this kind of thing than Cari, who was in some ways delicate, having lived a coddled and adored life in a nice home in a city you barely heard of, in a state famous for potatoes. She had always protected Cari since the day they'd met, bringing all the strength and generosity anyone had ever brought to such a job. 


End file.
